New Guardians
by ConEmber
Summary: Two new miraculous users show up in Paris, with them there Hawkmoth is raising his game, trying to get his hands on every miraculous he can. Will Leonidas and Louvan be able to keep themselves on par with Cat Noir and Ladybug? Will they be able to defeat a new threat on the horizon? I guess you'll have to find out. (How did this get to be novel length?)
1. Chapter 1

So, there I was, sitting in class. Mrs. Mendeleev was going over chemical bonds with us when a girl with blue hair that looked really tired came wandering in. "Ms. Cynthia, this is not a good first impression to make on me." Mrs. Mendeleev chastised her.

"Sorry, Mrs. Mendeleev…"

"You will be sitting there, next to Devain, the boy in the plaid hoodie." She pointed without looking away from the projection on the board.

I waved at her to show her where she was going.

She awkwardly walked past everyone and sat next to me. Her cheeks were bright red as she tried to hide in her white hoodie.

"Hi. You really didn't miss much." I moved my bag down from the seat to make room for her.

"Good. I usually miss more than just the first few minutes of class."

"Why is that-"  
"Mr. Devain, and Ms. Cynthia, if you don't stop talking I'll be sending you to Mr. Damocles." Mrs. Mendeleev wasn't a fan of our conversation.  
"Sorry." I told her and got quiet.

"Yes, ma'am!" She was definitely awake now.

"Now then, as I was saying, these atoms will bond with these ones," The teacher started her lesson again.

About halfway through it, an announcement came over the loudspeaker from the principal, "Students and staff, I'm afraid that there is a supervillain on the loose and that they are heading for the school. You all need to evacuate and get to the safety of your homes as quickly as possible."

A little grin tugged at my lips as I stood up quickly and hopped over the desk in front of me, hurrying out the door.

Out of sight to the rest of the class, a small orangey creature with broad frills shaped like a mane flew out of my pocket in front of me. "Was the jumping really necessary?" My kwami asked me.

"No, but it got me out of there quicker. We've got a job to do."  
The lion Kwami nodded and waited for my command phrase.

"Shizu, mane event." I flicked my gold chain necklace upwards and he zoomed into it. Five triangular pieces sprung out of it and a golden light spread down my torso, before a breastplate slammed into place. The glow then started to fold out of the arm holes of the breastplate like tiny pieces of metal as scale mail coated them down to the forearms. Then I slammed my fist into my palm and a pair of gauntlets with fangs coming out of the knuckles appeared. I tapped the toe of my shoe on the ground a couple of times before slamming my foot down on the ground making an armored boot appear on it, and swinging the other foot in front made the golden glow travel up to make the second boot. The glow then traveled down my legs from my torso and up them from the boots to meet in the middle and create more scale mail. I swung my arm out to the side and a length of chain extended from the base of my back that ended in a tuft of fur. Turning my hand upwards, a helm with the look of a roaring lion appeared in it and I set it on my head before it sealed itself to the rest of the suit.

I ran out of where I transformed and to the front doors of the school to see if I could find the villain before they got here. Looking up towards the sky, I didn't see anyone yet. Not even other heroes. "Well, I guess I'll have to do some time buying." I heard an extremely loud motor coming from down the street and when I saw what it was coming from, there wasn't anything it could be besides a villain. It looked like a big rig that was painted black with green hot rod flames and the exhaust pipes were changed into gas cannons. I ran out in front of it, hoping what Shizu told me about my power was correct. I held my fists out in front of me and the front of the gauntlets turned to lions' heads that ate through pieces of the truck as it nearly hit me.

The driver stuck his head out the window and now that I could get a good look at him, he definitely was just the normal sort of akumatized citizen. His skin was a chalky grey, he was wearing an overtly large red hat, a flanel with the sleeves ripped off, and spoke with a thick southern US accent. "What do you think yer doin'?! This here is my truck! Yer keepin' me from getting 'cross the city and makin' it smell like home!"

"Sorry, I don't know where you're from, but in Paris we tried to keep our emissions to a minimum."

"Well then maybe ya'll should change your prissy town so it can take some stink!" He hopped out of his truck with a pair of pipe nunchucks. That was a bit odd. He spun them around and started swinging them down at me repeatedly as I used my gauntlets to slowly eat away at them. He swung the last time and missed thanks to the fact that he had lost an entire length of pipe on both his nunchucks and tossed them aside to try and barefist fight me.  
Which, you know, bad idea to punch a guy covered in metal. Even worse when he can do what I can. "Transmuter's Roar!" I put gauntlet up in front of the villain's face and the lion's maw formed on it before shooting off a fiery blast into his face, making him shout and stumble backwards rubbing his eyes.

The man fell forward a second later as a grey blur tackled him to the ground. Once they had stopped moving I saw that the newcomer had a very… ninja aesthetic, for lack of a better word. I also happened to notice that she had a choker on that had a moon symbol split in five on it. "Took you awhile." I joked with her. "You with Ladybug or on your own for now?"

"I would love to be with Ladybug. She's amazing."

"Yeah. Bit later than usual though. Normally when something is going on near this school she shows up within minutes." The villain tried to push himself up and out from underneath this girl, but she wasn't having it.

She grabbed the villain's head and slammed it onto the ground. Surprisingly no blood.

"Leonidas." I pointed to myself as an introduction. "What do you go by?"

"Louvan."

"Oh, cool name. I like it." I smiled beneath my helmet as I looked around the place to try and see if the bug or the cat were on their way.

I did see one of them running in our direction and it was Ladybug, but she looked like she was still prepped for a fight. I waved to her and she threw her yo-yo towards me. It caught me by surprise and wrapped tightly around me before pulling me closer to her.

"What are you doing?! We got the bad guy!"

"What's going on here?" She questioned me, trying to be intimidating.

"Uh, we were doing what you normally do. Now, if you could let me go, the whole secret identity thing is kind of important and I've only got three minutes left." I nodded towards my necklace.

"A miraculous?" Her face changed almost immediately to a mix of regret and confusion as she unwrapped her yo-yo from me. "We're talking later." She told me with authority.

"Yes, ma'am." I took a few steps back before turning and leaping like an anime boy away from there.

* * *

I saw a blur of shiny black leather before a metal pole smacked me in the face, and off of the villain. "I don't think this is a good place for a truck stop." Cat noir quipped at me.

I looked up at him confused. "We just did your job for you, kitty."

"Oh? I don't recognize you and you're near the big piece of machinery that's been smoking up Paris. If that doesn't scream akumatized, I don't know what does."

I just stood there dumbfounded by this guy. How does Ladybug put up with him?!

He pointed his pole at me and it extended rapidly, pushing me roughly into the light behind me before shrinking back down quickly so I bounced off of it and felt his foot impacting my chest. "How about you make it a little easier and just tell me where the akuma is so that when my lady gets here we don't need to waste anymore of your time?"

"I was sitting on him till you knocked me off."

"What?" Now he was the one confused. The truck started it's engine again as the villain climbed back into it.

"Cat noir!" Ladybug ran up from the other side of the truck. It started going again and drove right on passed us, still spewing smoke. The small amount that did come near us was bad enough to make each of us start hacking and coughing. "They're… new miraculous holders." She caught him up to speed.

I grabbed my knife and ran after the truck. "Try to keep up, kitty!"

"As long as you can run fast enough to keep pace with us!" Cat noir shouted back at me as he launched himself with his stick.

"Challenge accepted!" I leaped towards the truck and past him.

* * *

I got to a secluded place with about a minute left before I was forced to turn back. "Shizu, mane blown." My armor turned into a golden light and was sucked into the necklace before Shizu came out, looking a bit tired. "Not too bad for our first outing, huh?." I pulled out a piece of beef jerky from the bag I had in my pocket and gave it to him.

"You were reckless, doing what you did." He told me ask he ate the spiced meat.

"I mean, it worked, didn't it?"

"Yes, but you could've gotten injured or worse." He finished his little snack as a familiar motor passed by. Overhead, three heroes were zooming passed me.

I sighed and chuckled a little as I looked at Shizu. "Looks like we need to finish what we started."

"It's a good thing you had the jerky on you, or they would probably be worse off without us."  
"You're probably right." I flicked my necklace up, "Shizu, mane event."

* * *

I was holding on to the bed of the truck, being swung around wildly. "Git off o' my truck!" The villain yelled at me as he continued swerving. I saw him say something to it before getting out of his seat and climbing out of the back window into the bed with a shotgun that looked like it was from a nerf commercial. He pointed it at me and it fired out more of the gas that made us cough before.

I coughed as I swung myself into the bed, and grabbed the gun. He slammed the barrel of it into my forehead (the same place Cat hit me, why does everyone hate my head?) trying to yank it out of my grasp.

"Enough of the play toys." I swung an elbow down on the gun and ripped it from his grip.

"Fine then, let's settle this like true-WOAH!" The truck was suddenly stopped by Cat noir's stick extended between two lights, throwing both of us from the truck. I landed a bit further from the truck than the villain did because he had recovered a lot faster and he was moving towards his truck again. I saw a glint of something golden colored and as that little sparkle grew, I saw it slam down through the truck and the villain stopped in his tracks, shocked. Leonidas climbed up from the hole he made in the truck and looked at the villain with a cocky smile. "You didn't think I'd leave you hanging, did you?"

"Great… remarks from you and Cat… Lucky me."

"Well, you know what they say about black cats." Leonidas came down off of the truck right before it turned to dust, revealing a Cat noir behind it. From the dust pile a little dark purple butterfly flew out. Ladybug came down from above and captured it before releasing it again as a white butterfly.

She threw what looked like a massive rubber band up into the air and magical ladybugs flew around the city, fixing what had happened, and deakumatized the villain to be just a regular guy and made his truck into an old rundown car.

"Pound it." Her and Cat noir fist bumped. Cat looked over to Leonidas and me and gestured for us to come over. I think I saw Leonidas do a mini celebration before he went over to them.  
I on the other hand nervously followed behind him. I know this probably won't be great for me. I'm a slow thinker, so my reactions unfortunately suffer from that. Leonidas and I put our fists onto either side of Ladybug and Cat's before they looked to us. "We both used our powers, so we don't have lots of time left. I'd like to talk to you two more at the Eiffel Tower tonight. Help take care of this man." Ladybug told us before yo-yoing off.

Leonidas walked up to the man and crouched down to him. "Hey, you alright?" He offered a hand to help the guy up.

He took it, rubbing his head as he stood. "I… I think so. The last thing I remember is getting a ticket for my emissions, but I can't get a new car."  
"Have you thought about selling that car and getting a bike?" He asked the former villain. "It wouldn't have any emissions and you'd get in better shape."  
"Hey, that's a good idea, thanks." The man walked over to his car and drove off. Leonidas gave him a thumbs up as he left before turning to look at me. "Since we've got some time to kill, want to post up somewhere and find out more about each other?"

"Sure." I smiled as I followed his lead.

* * *

This superhero thing was more fun than I thought, and I'm already making new friends because of it. I led Louvan to the top of the TV studio. No one ever came up here, so we could speak freely. I leaned my back against the AC unit and looked at her. "So, you new to this like me?"

"Yeah. I'm just worried this won't be a good fit for me."

"You did great today. Sorry I couldn't be there the whole time. Five minutes and all that."

She chuckled. "It's okay. I was almost sure I was going to get in Ladybug, and Cat noir's way."

"You seemed like you were an integral piece of their plan, keeping the guy busy so he didn't see what was coming."

"That's true. What about you? You new to this too?"

"Yeah, just found mine in my bag a couple of days ago. I tried to look it up online, but nothing was there. I'm having a great time though. Did yours come with a little animal alien guy too?"

"Yeah, it did. A little fluff ball that's hyper all the time. What's yours like?"

"Oh, Shizu is a bit of a nag, but we get along well. He wasn't exactly happy with me jumping in front of the truck to stop it." I chuckled a little bit.

We went on talking to each other until the sun started to set and we figured it'd be a good idea to see Ladybug at the Eiffel Tower like she asked us to.  
We made our way there and waited for her at the bottom where people came up to us asking a lot of questions. "Are you the new heroes that helped Ladybug and Cat noir? What are your names? Where are you from? Can you tell us who you are outside the costumes? Where do you get your powers from?"

Louvan froze. Guess she had a thing with attention or something? She was fumbling over her own words, and the bit I could see of her face was turning red.

"Hey!" I yelled out over the crowd and they all turned towards me. "How about you guys make a line and you get one question each, alright?"

That seemed to satisfy most of them as they got into a surprisingly long line. What, do these people just stalk the internet for anything Ladybug related? We had gotten about half way through the line when I glanced up and saw Ladybug swinging towards the level of the tower above us. "That's all the time we've got for questions right now," I grabbed onto Louvan's wrist, "We've got a meeting to get to." I jumped up to the part of the Tower that I saw Ladybug swing to.

Louvan jumped up the beams to Ladybug. Then she yelled, "Cat noir! Quit hitting me!"

I crossed my arms over my chest looking at the other heroes. "So, what did you want to know?"  
"Mainly how you got a miraculous." Ladybug said suspiciously.

"I just found mine in my bag about a week ago. I've got no clue how it got there." I shrugged. "I figure if the owner sees it and wants it back, they'll try to find me when a villain is out and about to get it back."

"An elderly man gave me mine as a thank you after I defended him from some teens calling him nasty things and throwing things at him."

"Was he about this tall with a mustache and tropical shirt?" She asked, putting her hand at her waist.

"Yeah." Louvan was looking up a little as she was thinking.

"So he gave them to you like he gave ours to us." Cat noir smiled in understanding.

"Oh… did you know who he was when you got yours?" I asked them.

"No, I only found out about him when my kwami took me there so I could get help."

"Kwami? Is that what the little alien guys are?"

"Yeah. Yours didn't tell any of that to you?" Cat noir asked.

"Oh please, it's not like yours was much better." Ladybug giggled.

"Kerberos has just been hyper, and eating all my cookies." Louvan sighed.

The rest of us laughed a little bit before Ladybug kept asking us questions. "So, what should we call you two?"

"My name's Leonidas." I introduced myself.

"Louvan." She laughed nervously.

"Alright, so what can you do?" Cat noir was curious. "I saw Leo here use his gauntlets to eat through the truck earlier, but that didn't seem like your main power."

"Oh! I uh… I can cover about a 15 meter wide area in a dark cloud. It lets me blend in a bit more for a sneak attack."

"And for me it's… complicated. When I clench my fist," I closed my hand into a fist and a lion face formed over my knuckles, "This shows up and eats any metal it touches. The more metal it eats, the more powerful flames come out when I use my power."

"That's… interesting." Ladybug looked at the lion face on my hand intrigued.

"What about you guys? Anything you feel like you should share so that we make a better team?" I took the chance to ask my question.

"Cat can stop hitting me every time he sees me first." Louvan huffed.

"With him, it's either get hit or get hit on." Ladybug teased.

"Oh, my lady, you wound me." He joked.

"Yeah, I'd prefer getting hit… I pity you Ladybug."

"It's fine. I get back at him for it on occasion." She smirked.

"And what about you, Ladybug? Anything we should know about you before the next villain shows up?"

"Her plans are always at least five step." Cat stuck his tongue out at her.

"They work, don't they!?" She huffed.

"Hey, anyway to save the city." I gave a thumbs up. "Just tell me how I can help and I'll do my best."

"Great. Oh, and don't try to figure out our identities. We need to keep those a secret from each other for safety's sake."

"Got it. You'll all stay as Ladybug, Cat noir, and Louvan to me."

"Should be easy enough." Louvan shrugged.

"Well, you guys have a good night. I've got something to wake up for tomorrow and I should be hitting the sack soon." I strolled towards the elevator.

"Night, Leonidas."

I got in the elevator and sat down under the windows. Once I was about half way down, I said "Shizu, mane blown." And the armor on me was off in a flash, with Shizu floating in front of me.

"You did a good job today. I would still like you to work on your hand to hand combat when we get back home."  
"Ah, you worry too much. The armor protects me and I know that Ladybug will be able to help me if I end up out of my depth."

"You still must be able to defeat opponents quickly in case anything like the Scarlet Moth incident happens again."

"Right…" That day was extremely terrifying, and it was a while before I found my miraculous in my bag. "How about this, I work on that when there isn't a villain attack for the day. That seem good to you?"

"That's… acceptable."

When I came out of the elevator, I was acting like I was freaking out because I saw a meeting with Ladybug, Cat noir, AND those two new heroes. After getting through the people at the tower, we started on our way home.

* * *

Soon Ladybug and Cat noir left as well. I watched them head off to wherever. I on the other hand stayed here for a bit longer before going home. I came in through the window and flopped on my extremely soft blanket on my bed. "Kerberos, new moon."

"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" They flew out and zoomed around my ceiling. "That was so cool! You got to meet Ladybug, Cat noir, go on your first superhero outing, meet a really cool lion guy, that was an amazing day!"

"I guess." I grabbed a cookie out of the jar on my desk. "Cookie?"

"Oo, yes!" He zoomed towards me and basically tackled the cookie from my hand before chowing down on it like a wood chipper would a tree.

"Slow down! You're gonna choke again!" I grabbed the sides of my white hoodie as I anxiously watched him.

He was down to one chocolate chip, which he threw into the air and flew up to eat it. "Mmmm." He rubbed his belly.

"I'm going to go grey because of you…"

"Yeah, when you transform your hair turns black and grey, the best colors because they're my colors!"

As annoying as he could be he is pretty cute sometimes. "Night, Kerberos."

"You're going to sleep alreadyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?" He whined.

"No, I'm going to play my game till I finally fall asleep."

"Oo, can I try to play it!?" He asked excitedly.

"Sure. It's called Tetris." I showed him how to play and that was a mistake. He was playing it on my bed, zooming around the phone, and adding his own sound effects.

"Boof, bap, shwing, swoop, pow." He kept making the noises all night probably. I tried to get some sleep before the next day.


	2. Chapter 2

I was, as usual, running late for school. "Kerberos! Help! Full moon!" School didn't start yet, but I was gonna be late running if I didn't leave now.

"WEEEEEE!" He was sucked into my choker, the annoyingly tight fitted clothes wrapped around me, the fur accents on my waist, and arm fluffed up, as well as my fur collar on my neck. I jumped and both boots with fur trim were on. I pulled my mask over my mouth and nose. My hair changed from blue to black with silver stripes.

I was out the window, running faster than normal across the roofs, and jumping between or over some. "Can't be late, can't be late!" I landed in an alley next to school and transformed back to my usual appearance as I ran towards the doors. As soon as I got in them, the bell for the start of first period rang. Thankfully there was a line to get in the classroom. "Yes! Not late!"

I heard a chuckle come from somebody in line and I saw it was the kid with the plaid hoodie from yesterday. Crap, what was his name?

As we entered the class we grabbed a few papers and sat in our seats. Same ones as yesterday. As the teacher lectured I saw him drawing really simple doodles in the margins of his notebook. He looked pretty bored here, kind of like he knew all the stuff already. Maybe that's why he said I didn't miss much yesterday…

I, on the other hand, was struggling like crazy. "Stupid science…"

I saw him write something on his notebook's page and slid it towards me a little. It said "Do you want any help? I already know all of this."

I wrote "Please." and slid it back to him.

I saw him flip it over and start drawing something to help me figure it out. He slid it over to me, but the teacher saw this and walked over to me.

"Would you like to share what that note says with the rest of the class?" She asked me.

"It doesn't matter. He was just trying to help me."

"Then you wouldn't mind sharing his advice to help the rest of the class, would you?"

I rolled my eyes and handed her the note.

She took it and looked at it. "Oh, this is actually what the whole lesson is about. Thank you, Devain, for helping her out."

"Yeah, no problem." He told her with a smile. She then started to walk back towards the front of the room to continue teaching and Devain was helping me understand all of it, like he already knew a lot of this stuff.

Eventually the class ended and we were all headed for the next one of the day. This day felt like it would drag on forever…

"Do you have any friends here?" Devain asked me out of the blue.

"Oh, um not really. I go to Marinette's family bakery and talk with her there for a while, but I don't know. I can be really socially awkward so," I laughed nervously, "I really didn't know if I have friends."

"Let's change that."

"Hm?"

"Let's be friends."

"O-okay." I smiled a little. "Oh man, I need to go to the bakery after school!" Kerberos ate almost all of his cookies last night…

"Cool. How about I tag along?"

"Sure!" No!

"Awesome. We could split a cake." He smiled.

"Maybe!"

The final bell rang and Devain and I were running out the doors. I said see you laters to a few people and Devain seemed a bit surprised at me. "See ya in a few Marinette!" I chuckled as we ran past her.

When we got to the bakery it looked like someone wasn't pleased with what they got. Once we opened the door we heard the ranting and raving of someone who was looking for a reason to be mad. "Well, this is going to be pleasant." Devain said sarcastically and looked over to me.

"Hey!" I finally yelled at the person. "What seems to be the problem here?"

"It's none of your business!" They snapped at me. "Why don't you go outside and let the adults handle this amongst ourselves?"

"Actually it is my business. They're almost like second parents to me." I stood between the man and Marinette's mom. "So, why don't you calm down, and we'll fix this?"

He looked down at his watch and frustratedly screamed, "This isn't worth it, I'll just be taking my business elsewhere!" And he stormed out.

"You okay?" I asked Sabine as I turned around and smiled.

"Oh, yes, I'm fine, he told us the order was wrong but Tom meticulously records everything and it all seemed to be in order. We just don't know what he was talking about."

"Strange…"

"It unfortunately happens on occasion, some people just want to try and weasel their way into some free pastries. But as a thank you for helping us out with him, what would you like? Your order today is on the house."

"No! I can't just take it."

"Don't be silly, you did us a favor by making him leave."  
Devain came up, put a hand on my shoulder, and said, "I did suggest earlier that we could share a cake."

I chuckled. "And I just need my usual. A baker's dozen of chocolate chip cookies, and a baker's dozen of… surprise me. Oh, and Mom wants a chocolate chip muffin."

"Of course, that all should be done in about 45 minutes."

"Thanks, Sabine! You guys are awesome."

"Oh, we try. You two can wait here or anywhere else."

A few minutes later Marinette walked in.

"I win." I joked with her.

"You didn't run into anyone on the way out." She stuck her tongue out.

"OR! You were too busy watching Adrien."

Devain snickered a little bit as Marinette stammered and sputtered trying to think of a different excuse.

"No excuse?" I giggled. "Also I wasn't paying attention in our design class. What was the homework?"

"Oh, it was to design a costume based on the superheroes of Paris. I heard a couple new ones showed up yesterday to help out Ladybug and Cat noir."

People already heard about us?! That's awesome! This will be so easy! I can't wait for Kerberos to see! "That's cool! I'm gonna ace this. Costumes are my specialty."

"Either of you need someone to model the costume?" Devain jokingly struck bodybuilder poses.

"I already had somebody in mind, but thanks."

"Adrien?~" I giggled again. It was too easy to tease her sometimes.

"W-what d-do you mean? I mean, yeah, he is a professional model, but there could also be other guys that look good, not to say that Adrien doesn't look good, but I mean, uh…" She was embarrassed again.

"We should model each other's sometime." I suggested.

"Yeah, that's a great idea!" She agreed. "Do you want to go upstairs to get each other's measurements?"

"Sure! Be right back Devain. Don't eat all the cake!"

"I'll try to control myself." He smiled. He was really smiley.

I followed Marinette to her room which hasn't changed much. Adrien was still her background in her computer. I sat my bag on her bed and checked on Kerberos. He was still asleep. His cookies were gone, wait! When did he sneak into Marinette's bag?! He has one of her macaroons.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, bakers." I heard a high pitched sing-songy version of the man's voice from before downstairs.

"Not that guy again…" I grumble and ran down the stairs. "Be right back!"

When I got halfway down the last flight of stairs, I saw that Sabine and Tom had been stuck to the walls with a white gooey substance. Some of it was covering their mouths and when one of them noticed me they shook their head wildly as if telling me not to come down.

I ran back up the stairs and put my fingers to my lips as Marinette looked at me. "Something attacked your parents. They're covered in something white and gooey, and they told me not to go downstairs."

"Do you think it was someone who was akumatized?" She whispered.

"I think so. That man that just kinda sang was the man who was giving your mom a hard time, and I stepped in telling him to calm down so we could fix something if there was a problem, and he stormed out."

She gasped. "He's probably looking for you. You need to hide somewhere." She looked around a little. "Get in the bathroom!" She whisper yelled at me.

"Okay." This was perfect! I could sneak out the window! I grabbed Kerberos quickly from my bag when Marinette wasn't looking. I locked the door of the bathroom behind me. "Hey bud, wake up."

His head shot up. "Yes? Do we get to do superhero things? Are we fighting bad guy?" He asked excitedly.

"Yes, now let's go. Full moon!"

* * *

I was waiting in the bakery for them to be done their measurements when someone walked in, making the bell above the door ring. I turned and saw someone that looked like a cross between a mime and chef with an icing tube on his wrist.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, bakers." He said in a high pitched, sing-songy way. He was focused on Marinette's parents to the point where he didn't see me yet. They turned and screamed as he blasted them with the icing nozzle, sticking them to the wall. Acting like a normal kid would, I ran out of the bakery. I turned around as I was running down the street and I saw him come out and look in my direction. I ducked between some houses to get out of the way of some icing that he shot at me. "Oh, this is not great." I talked to myself as Shizu floated up next to my face.

"Shake him and transform as soon as possible. The heat from transmuter's roar will make the icing brittle."

"Yeah, I know, come on." I ran further down the street looking for a more private place to transform.

I quickly stepped into a supply closet at the park "Shizu, mane event." I flicked my gold chain necklace upwards and he zoomed into it. Five triangular pieces sprung out of it and a golden light spread down my torso, before a breastplate slammed into place. The glow then started to fold out of the arm holes of the breastplate like tiny pieces of metal as scale mail coated them down to the forearms. Then I slammed my fist into my palm and a pair of gauntlets with fangs coming out of the knuckles appeared. I tapped the toe of my shoe on the ground a couple of times before slamming my foot down on the ground making an armored boot appear on it, and swinging the other foot in front made the golden glow travel up to make the second boot. The glow then traveled down my legs from my torso and up them from the boots to meet in the middle and create more scale mail. I swung my arm out to the side and a length of chain extended from the base of my back that ended in a tuft of fur. Turning my hand upwards, a helm with the look of a roaring lion appeared in it and I set it on my head before it sealed itself to the rest of the suit. I stepped out ready to face the guy now. I jumped up onto the nearby houses to get an idea of where he was.

There in the distance Ladybug and Louvan were fighting the man.

"I need metal." I talked to myself as I looked around. I saw the fence around the park and figured that Ladybug would fix it when we were done. I hopped down, made the lion face on my fist and ate the top section of the fence. Now loaded, I moved to get to them.

* * *

The icing villain was blasting icing towards us left and right, angrily yelling about me and Marinette's parents. "Come on, you don't think I'm worth it?"

"No! Nobody is worth what you're doing!" Ladybug yelled at him.

While he was distracted with Ladybug I snuck up behind him. There were tubes that lead to the container that had the icing. I might get stuck, but I would literally leave him weaponless. With a quick swipe with my knife it cut cleanly through. The icing started to spill everywhere. I jumped back and was surprisingly grabbed by Cat noir as he used his pole to swing over to Ladybug.

"No smart remarks?" I joked.

"Sorry, I think I'll be leaving the barking to you."

"Woof."

We were just waiting for one more kitty. Where was he? "His lines are cut. He can't use the icing." I informed Ladybug and Cat noir.

"Nice job. Now let's cream him!" Cat noir ran in to try and fight him directly.

"That's it!" The lightbulb went off again. "Shadow veil!" I held onto my miraculous and closed my eyes. The wind began to swirl around as a small dark cloud formed in the sky and began to spread. The area around us darkened. It was almost impossible to see. I could clearly see everything though.

"Nice trick." Cat told me as he pretty easily got the villain's icing blaster off of him. "Cataclysm." He said calmly and it broke apart into pieces, making the akuma come out. Ladybug flung her yo-yo at it and de-evilized the butterfly.

The sky quickly went back to normal before Ladybug released the butterfly. I heard the warning beep on my miraculous. I still had a few minutes. It's fine!

Leonidas finally showed up a second later, with one of his gauntlets having the lion face. "Alright, where is he?"

"You're late." I told him. "We already handled this." Another beep. "Gotta run! See ya around!" I ran back to Marinette's house and back through the window just in time. "That was close." I told Kerberos.

* * *

"Sorry for that, I was around people for longer than I would've liked to be." I told the two heroes that were still here.

"Hey, don't worry about it, we're late sometimes and we've been doing this for a few years." Cat said as his ring started blinking, "I've gotta run too, catch you both around." He ran off leaving me with Ladybug.

"Do you think you can make sure he gets down safe? I've got a friend I need to check up on."  
"Go ahead, I'll take care of it." I told her as I helped the man to his feet. It was the same guy who came into the bakery earlier.

"Thanks. See you later!" She said as she yo-yoed away.

"Where am I?" The guy asked me.

"Well, you were akumatized and we all fought you up here."

"What? You fought me _here_?" He asked, almost incredulously.

"Yeah. Do you want to get down or keep complaining?"

"Down, please." He seemed to have gotten the message.

I picked him up and jumped down to the street level to let him off. "Now stop looking for reasons to get mad. You'll just hurt more people."  
"But I wasn't-"  
I put my face close to his and repeated myself, since he didn't seem to have understood the first time.

"Okay. You got it."

"Good." I backed up with a smile. "Take care." I walked down the street towards the bakery to see how everyone was holding up.

* * *

Marinette and I took each other's measurements. Talked about a few ideas. She wanted to do something with Ladybug for me. I was obviously going to do something with Louvan. I could just stand in the mirror at home and figure something out. Not like my parents are ever home anyway.

"I'm so excited to see what you make! See you tomorrow." I grabbed my bags and started to walk down the stairs. "Oh! Here! Give your parents this money for me. They told me my stuff was on the house, but you know." I quickly handed her the money and some extra. "No giving any back."

"What? No, they'd want you to keep it."

"Eh." I shrugged. "Sneak it in the register or something. They don't have to know… right away."

"They'll just try to give it back to you if they figure it out."

"If!" I laughed. "Later!" I quickly ran down the stairs and back into the bakery. Everything smelt wonderful!

"Cynthia!" Marinette yelled after me.

When we got down the stairs we saw Leonidas talking with Marinette's parents which was… surprising, to say the least.

How would he have known to stop in? Was he just in the area checking on people? He was a bit late, so how much did he really know about what happened?

"Oh, hi." He noticed us coming down the stairs. "A civilian in a plaid hoodie told me that this was the place where the villain came from, so I wanted to make sure everyone was alright here."

"Where did he go?"

"He ran out of here and towards the park trying to find someone to help. I got on the scene a little late, but it's the thought that counts."

"I'll be back. I'm going to go find him." I said as I walked towards the door.

"Alright, good luck." Leonidas told me with a smile before he continued his conversation with Marinette's parents.

As I roamed around Paris I called it for Devain, and asked people if they've seen him. No one had. Great. Stupid me didn't even get his number to try and call him.

After a few minutes, I ran into him. "Oh my gosh, are you okay? Did Leonidas get to you guys in time to stop the villain? What happened?"

"Yeah. We're fine. We- They took care of the villain."

"I'm so glad you're okay. I don't know what I would've done if you had gotten hurt."

He's being a bit dramatic, right? "Uh. Okay. Let's, uh go get our cake."

"Yes!" He was still very excited for that.

We ran back to the bakery and everything was being packed up. I could feel Kerberos trying to fly to the cookies from inside my hoodie pocket.

"Hi, are you guys okay?" Devain asked as soon as we got inside.

"Yes, we're fine, sweetheart." Sabine smiled at us as the last of the food was out in boxes.

"I'm sorry for just running earlier. I was trying to get help." He sounded like he was trying to justify what he did.

"Devain, I'm sure anyone would have done the same." I assured him.

"Right. Could we have the cake now?" He tried changing the subject.

"Yeah!" I smiled as Sabine handed us a small cake and two forks. I wasn't surprised as Devain quickly took the cake.

"It took a while, but we ended up getting it." He joked a little.

"That's okay. It's well worth the wait."

"Might even be worth the encounter with a villain." He said after taking a bite.

I laughed before taking a bite of the cake. It was rich sweet moist chocolate cake with mini chocolate and peanut butter chips. It was my favorite!

"Are you from around here?" Devain asked between the fork shoveling cake into his mouth.

"Actually, no. My family and I are from the USA, and we moved kinda on a whim. My mom saw my passion for costume design, so this was kind of a surprise for me."

"Oh, that's pretty awesome. What are the states like?"

"Depends on the state you're in." I laughed. "I'm from Pennsylvania, and we moved to Delaware, and then here."

"Well, what were Pennsylvania and Delaware like? Are they close to each other?"

"Yeah. It's about 3 and ½ hours between the two. We go to Delewear for the beaches, and boardwalk, and Pennsylvania is a mix of small towns, some cities, and farms. Both get a lot of snow. Delaware is just starting to get more snow now than ever before, so they're not adjusted to the cold yet."

"…If I go somewhere 3 ½ hours away, I'm in a different country."

"That's crazy!"

"Not as crazy as moving across an ocean to study costume design." He gave a cheeky wink.

"What about you?"

"Oh, I've lived in France all my life, but my parents live farther out than most of the other kids at our school, so I rent a dorm there."

"That's kinda cool."

"Yeah, it is. Chloe tries to use it as something to put me down, but I just end up confusing her with something else."

"That's not hard to do. Just say something random and she's confused for hours."

"She might actually know how to do… well, anything, if she didn't have her 'daddy's' employees work for her."

"Oh boo-hoo. I'm Chloe, and I'm spoiled rotten."

"It kind of makes you wonder how _she _got to be a superhero for a little while."

"Yeah. It really does."

"Speaking of, any idea who the newcomers might be? Or if we might know them?"

"Nope." ME! I had no idea it would be so hard to not tell anyone. I think the only one it's easy to not tell is Mom. She and I really don't talk like we used to.

"I could see Leonidas being Adrien. Guy's got enough confidence to pull off the superhero thing." Devain guessed

"Marinette, what do you think?" I asked.

"Oh, well, Adrien is wonderful, but I don't want to think about him as a superhero. Not that he wouldn't be good at it, just that I wouldn't want him in danger." She rambled.

"What about Louvan?"

"Hm… I'm not sure. She seems pretty shy though, like she doesn't like having the limelight." He looked over at Marinette repeatedly, trying to hint that he thought it could be her.

I gave him a not so sure look. She's more bubbly to me, but she does seem surprised with recognition. "Maybe she's unsure yet. Like if she really thinks it's something for her or that she can do."

"Yeah, that makes sense. Not a lot of people are sure about what they can do when they're just starting out."

I went to have another bite of cake and it was all gone. "Devain? Where's the cake?"

"In my belly." He said honestly.

I chuckled as I picked up my box of cookies and Mom's muffin. "Thanks again!"

"Oh, don't mention it, kiddos." Tom said. "Happy to return any favor done for us."

"I'll see you guys tomorrow. Can't wait to see your design tomorrow, Marinette!"

"Thanks! I'm sure yours will be great too!" She told me.

"Have a good one." Devain told me with a wave.

* * *

Well, that day was eventful. I decided to head back to where I was staying and go to sleep early that night. My teachers would understand when I told them that the villain that showed up yesterday showed up at the bakery I was in, right?  
"You should get your work done." Shizu told me as I was getting into my pajamas.

"I was getting chased by a supervillain, at least some of them know how stressful that can be, not to mention life threatening."

"And if they don't believe you?"  
"Then I can get the work done during my free periods, I'll even skip lunch if I have to."

"Why not get it done now and have lunch tomorrow guaranteed?"  
"You're not going to stop until I do the work, are you?"  
"No."  
"Fine. Thanks." I used one finger to scratch the top of his head before getting down to my science homework.

A little over an hour later, all of what I needed was done, and I was barely keeping my eyes open. I flopped down in my bed and passed out asleep until the next morning. I pushed myself out of bed and got ready for the day when on my phone I heard a news report of a super villain. I guess the shower would have to wait for a bit. "Shizu, mane event."


	3. Chapter 3

The villain was flinging croissants at everyone like they were boomerangs. "Come on out, you little pests! I know that wild animals love eating our food!"

"Sorry, no 'little' pests today." I told him.

He turned around and saw me there in my suit and he frowned. "You're not either of the people I'm looking for."  
"Oh, right, I don't think I've introduced myself to your boss yet. Name's Leonidas. Holder of the lion miraculous. Now how about you come try to get it." I balled my hands into fists and the lion faces covered them as I moved them into a boxing stance.

The villain laughed. "Croissault doesn't need to get closer to you." He threw his croissants towards me, trying to hook one around my necklace. However, I wasn't going to just let that happen so I punched each of the croissants before they could get to me, slowly moving towards him as he kept flinging pastries my way.

"Thanks for all the snacks." I tell him once I'm close enough to bash my head into his. I have a helmet on, so it doesn't hurt that much.

He, on the other hand, yelled out in a bit of pain, staggering backwards and rubbing his forehead.

Louvan struck the man from behind as she jumped down from a building. "Looking for little things, here I am."

"What, had to stop for breakfast before work?" I asked her with a grin.

"Where are Ladybug and the Cat?!" Croissault yelled at us and interrupted the banter.

"We'll stop you before they even get here."

"Please, you're barely worth considering appetizers." He pulled out a number of croissants and flung them at us. I stepped in front of Louvan and tried to punch them out of the air like before, but these ones were slippery, like they were covered in butter, making my punches just change where they were going: into the buildings behind us.

"Louvan, you keep him occupied for a bit, I'm going to go find some metal."

"Got it!"

I ducked out of the way of the way croissants to get out of sight and get some metal into the lions.

* * *

"You get back here!" Croissault threw some croissants after Leonidas, but I jumped in the way and cut the croissants in half with my knife.

"Oh, you little basket case." He pulled a very big and very stale croissant from his back, and ran towards me.

I jumped to the side and somewhat cut, but most ripped a corner of the croissant off.

He turned a lot quicker than I expected, and sent me backwards. His gloating grin didn't last long though, as a familiar yo-yo wrapped around the big croissant and ripped it from his hands. "Don't you know that bread is bad for dogs?" Ladybug quipped at him.

"Oh the bad puns…" I mumbled. "You two are getting later every day."

"Finally." He got a grin and leapt up towards Ladybug with a hand out towards her earrings.

He then got smacked back down by Cat noir's stick. "Sorry, she doesn't even let me lay a hand on her."

"Both of you." A purple glow sprung from his face around his eyes. "It's time, Hawkmoth."

I leaped at the villain and grabbed the basket, ripping it off him.

"Give that back!" He turned to me, grabbing the handle and we were now in a tug of war.

I broke off the handle with the back of my knife. We stumbled away from each other, and the basket was smashed on my fall.

An akuma flew out of the now destroyed basket, and Ladybug swept it up with her yo-yo, before letting a white butterfly fly away. Almost as soon as that was over, another commotion started up a few blocks down.

"Aw man. You two go, I'll catch up with you!" I turned my attention back to the ex-villain as he got up.

"Where am I? Last thing I remember is someone berating my croissant stand."

"You were akumatized. Come on, let's get you back."

"Oh no… I hope I didn't hurt anyone."

* * *

Two in the span of 10 minutes. What are the odds? I was being matched punch for punch against a villain that looked like a woman with a mirror face with our blows mostly just cancelling each other out. "You know, I just wanted a simple morning, but instead I've gotta deal with you a croissant boy." The next time her hand met my gauntlet, I used my power, "Transmuter's roar!" The blast of flames sent him flying backwards into a car.

"Hey, that was pretty good. I think I might use that." She swung her arm forward and launched a torrent of fire at me. I held up my arms in front of my face reflexively as the flames pushed me back a good five feet.

"Leonidas!" Ladybug and Cat noir landed next to me.

"What's the deal with her?" Ladybug asked.

"I think she copies abilities when she sees them used. She was able to perfectly mirror my punches and then used Transmuter's Roar against me after I used it on her."  
"Man, this is reminding me of Copycat." Cat noir complained.

"If you used your power, we've gotta end this fast. Lucky-"  
"Wait! If you use it when she's in view, she'll be able to use it to."  
"Oh, he's smart." The mirror woman remarked.

"Come on, copycat, let's see how well you can mimic the originals." Cat noir ran forward with his stick. She produced a stick from what looked like a liquid metal substance that came from a device on her arm.

"There, her arm. Akuma's gotta be in that machine that made the staff."

"Then let's hurry and bust it up." I glanced down at my necklace and one of the five triangle pendants was already gone before I ran towards her. She was perfectly mirroring Cat, so I tried to behind her to fight. Unfortunately, the device produced another set of arms for her to fight with and we were back to where we started.

Ladybug tried to wrap her up with the yo-yo, but the device shot out liquid to perfectly match the yo-yo and both got sent back from where they came.

"You won't stop me. I just need to tire you out and then all three of your miraculous are mine."

I glanced up towards the roof of a building and saw Louvan waiting for her chance. "That's the funny thing about wolves. They don't tire easily." I pulled my arms back to look like I was going for a head butt and that's when Louvan struck.

"Shadow veil!" The fur on her right arm turned jet black before the darkness of the color flowed out of her hand and she flung down towards us, the shadow ball expanding like an explosion when it hit the ground. My hit was successful, and I heard the mirror face crack. With her distracted like this, Cat noir grabbed the liquid sprayer and crushed it in his hand, setting a second akuma free before Ladybug caught it with her yo-yo.

I heard my necklace start beeping as the darkness fell away from us.

"Good work team. I've gotta go." I sprinted off as fast as I could back towards my dormitory so I could at least try not to smell like I was fresh out of gym and still be close to on time. Oh, and I guess also keep my identity a secret.

* * *

I would have loved to get back to bed, but school awaits. I can't wait to see Marinette in my design! I grabbed the design in its dust cover and rushed to school. I could care less about whatever else happened, I just wanted to see this design on her. She's a cute girl, so I really think this will work well.

My classes were a bore as usual and Devain had to help me in chemistry like usual, but as soon as my design class came around Marinette and I were thrilled. My design looked like it should be for some very formal occasions. It was a fitted mermaid style dress with fur trim on the bottom, fur on the trim of two pockets. The top of the dress went up into a halter like the mask could be pulled up at any second. The main color of the dress was a blue, black shifting color. Fingerless gloves with fur trim around the top to match. There, of course, was a small belt with the difference phases of the mons on it.

Marinette's was a much less fancy ensemble. Hers was a red jacket with black spots sewn on with maroon string, a red shirt, tight fitting black pants, and a large-brimmed red hat with a black band around it just above the brim.

Looking around at the others… well…. Marinette and I looked like we went overboard.

"I don't know if this is a good thing or bad thing…" I whispered to her.

"Dang, girls," Alya said to us, "you both look fantastic."

"Thank you." I blushed.

"Thanks Alya. Are you here to write about this on another blog you decided to start?" Marinette joked.

"It gives her a variety of options." I suggested.

"Noooooo, I'm going to write about it on the school blog." She said and they both laughed a bit.

"Alright, students. The judging will begin soon. Get in your places, and we'll be ready to go in a few minutes." Mr. Damokles told us all.

Marinette and I stood relatively close to each other. Everyone else got someone who had a free period to model, or just wore it themselves. After a while of the teacher and Mr. Damokles walking around to look at the students' designs, they tallied up the points and were ready to make an announcement of who won. "If you all would quiet down, we have reached a decision. We have a tie for the highest score between Marinette Dupein-Cheng's Ladybug casual chic and Cynthia Jenssen's Louvan formalwear."

"I told you guys you looked amazing." Alya told us.

"Thank you, Alya." I smiled then hugged Marinette. "Thanks for being an awesome model."

"Thank you!" She wrapped her arms around me in a return of the hug. "Without you, I would've had to model this myself, and that would not have gone well."

"Aw. You're so sweet. I think this would have looked just as cute on you."


	4. Chapter 4

I was bored in class. Which was pretty usual for a class run by Mrs. Mendeleev, but today was especially bad because the akuma fight earlier today made me work up a sweat but I didn't have enough time to get a good shower between then and getting to school. So, that was uncomfortable. Once the school day had finished though, that was when I started to actually think. "Oh, hi, Cynthia. How'd the design thing go?

"Marinette and I tied for first!"

"That's awesome!" I was super excited for her. "Could I see what you guys made later?"

She looked over at Marinette who nodded. "Sure. Meet me at my place." She grabbed my arm and gave me her number and address.

"I have scrap paper, you know." I chuckled a little bit.

"Sorry, habit. I write a lot of notes on my arms."

"No worries." I pulled out my phone to add her to my contacts. "See you around six?"

"Sounds good! I'll be home all night, so whatever time is fine."

"Is that good with you, Mari?" I wanted to make sure both of them were alright with it.

"Oh, yeah, definitely." She nodded.

I hurried back to my dorm to get not smelling like I had just run track. "Are you sure being around those two is a good idea? If another akuma appears you won't be able to transform immediately and people might be in danger."  
"Chill, Shizu. If something happens, I'll play coward again and run off."

"Hm…" Shizu looked agitated. "No holder of the lion miraculous should even pretend to be a coward."  
"I'll figure something out." I poked his belly. "Besides, I'm not the one afraid of thunderstorms."  
"THEY ARE LOUD AND SOUND LIKE EXPLOSIONS HAPPENING ALL AROUND US!"

I chuckled as I stepped into the shower to start smelling like a summer afternoon.

When I got to Cynthia's, Marinette and one of her friends were already there. Alya, I think?

"Oh, is this the guy you were talking about?" The friend asked Cynthia, pointing at me.

"Probably." I answered for her. "Hi, I'm Devain and I'm good at science." I joked a bit.

Alya chuckled and looked at Cynthia, "Yeah, that's definitely one of the things she said."

"What? I said he's a sweet guy." She looked at the girls confused.

"Whatever. Just come on and show us what you guys made!" Alya said excitedly.

Cynthia unzipped her bag over the clothes and pulled out the dress and fluffed the bottom. "Tada!"

"Can we see it on you?" I asked. I wasn't really a fashion person, so I kind of had a hard time seeing just a dress and thinking what it would look like on someone.

"Oh! Uh…" She looked over at Marinette asking if she wanted to put it on. The girls giggled as they smiled and went to different rooms to change.

"So, how'd you meet Cynthia?" I asked Alya.

"Oh, once when I was looking for a story for my blog I found her close to the scene of the battle hiding out."

"We're ready!" Marinette poked her head into the door of Cynthia's room.

"Then let's see it!" I said.

Marinette walked in wearing the dress. She was smiling and did a spin when she was in the middle of the room. Cynthia did the same thing, but was a bit more awkward. She smiled as she looked at the outfit, and played with the jacket.

"Wow, both of those look great." I said with a smile.

"Thank you!" The girls smiled at me.

"No problem. Where'd you guys get your ideas from?"

"I went with more formal or fantasy style because that's what I'm most comfortable with, and Louvan kind of gave me a fantasy vibe." Cynthia trailed off trying to think of what to say. "Sorry… my notes are in my bag."

"Mine was focusing on something you could wear out and about everyday to show your appreciation for Ladybug since Ladybug saves us everyday."

"Wow, both are really neat. Why'd you pick the heroes you did?"

Cynthia was frantically looking for her notes in her bag. Marinette explained her reasoning. It seemed like it was easier for her to talk about her design than Cynthia. "Oh, mine was to help honor Ladybug because she's spent so much time protecting the city that the least I could do for her is to make this to show that I appreciate what she does."

"Oh, that's cool. I wonder if she saw it."

Cynthia left to change back into her other clothes. She handed the nicely folded pile to Marinette, and awkwardly sat on her bed. Were get togethers like this not really her thing?

"Well, since I don't really know you guys that well, should we try and learn stuff about each other?" I asked them.

* * *

After everyone had left I flopped onto my bed. Kerberos flew out of his hiding spot and into my face.

"You know where the cookies are." I told him.

"YAYYYYYY!" He flung himself through my desk's drawer and I heard the sounds of him eating the treats.

"Kerberos, I can tell you anything, right?" Was he even paying attention? The cookies are the size of him…

His head twitched in my direction and he nodded as he continued to eat.

"I'm not sure I'm cut out for this."

"Yes you are." He said pretty simply between bites.

"I'm not as smart as the others, and I think so slowly. How is that any use to them?"

"So don't think. Just go off your instincts. It's what I do, and I've got a pretty sweet gig here."

"You get a dozen cookies at least every week."

"Exactly." He smiled as his tail wagged back and forth.

"You're so spoiled." I sighed. I looked out the window at the full moon. "Let's get some air. Kerberos, full moon!"

"But cookiiiiiiiiiiiies!" He yelled as he was sucked into the necklace.

As soon as I transformed I jumped out the window and ran across the rooftops. "Where's somewhere open I can go, but no one will see me?" I looked around while I was running and I swear I saw something flash in front of some stars in the sky.

"Duty calls?" I asked as I ran in the direction the blur went.

As I ran after it, I finally saw a shape start forming against the lights of Paris, the silhouette looked like a massive bat flying just above the rooftops. And it wasn't simple flight either, it was almost like they were showing off.

I whistled loudly to get their attention. "Over here!"

The shape quickly turned towards me, and I saw that they were wearing a mask that covered the top half of their face with some weird thing that wrapped around their ears. They zoomed towards me, still airborne. "You called?" They touched down in front of me and the wings that were open on their arms got pulled back in.

"What are you doing?"

"I was flying. I get that it's kind of hard to see in the dark for some people."

"That sounds like fun." I smiled. "You like to do tricks while you fly?"

"Heck yeah, I do. And nobody else can do 'em." He looked quite proud of himself.

"Why don't we find a more open area, and you can show me some? I mean if you want, that is."

"I've got the perfect spot." He smiled, grabbing my wrist and taking off again, with me in tow.

I giggled nervously at first, but a huge smile spread across my face. "This is so cool!"

"That's why I do it so much!" He eventually landed us down in the park. "Now, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show."

I sat on a bench as I watched him fly around. He was doing flips, spirals, and so many other tricks. My eyes were wide as I was mesmerized by his movements.

"One more trick." He grinned as he took off for a final time. "Echo Emotions!" The gadgets in his ears light up and symbols appear on his wings to show something charging up. Then he let out a screech that sounded like nails on a chalkboard and I was suddenly overwhelmed with doubt and a sense of hollowness.

I tried to cover my ears from the screech. My heart was pounding and my eyes darted everywhere looking for something that might attack me. Unfortunately, I didn't notice the thing that was fluttering in my direction until the akuma already found its way into my knife.  
"Blood Moon," A deep, raspy voice said to me, "you emotions are being manipulated by events outside of your control. I'll give you the power to blind others to their emotions if you can do something for me: retrieve Ladybug and Cat Noir's miraculouses."

"Of course." Then things kind of blurred for me.

* * *

I woke up to the sounds of people screaming and I looked outside to see what was going on. It looked like there was someone swiftly moving between people and then those people acting in the opposite way that they were before. "Well, that's not good."

"Does that figure not remind you of Louvan?" Shizu asked me.

"A bit. If it is her, we can get her back. Shizu, main event." I hopped out of my window when I was done transforming and landed outside. I used my lion fists to eat a hole in the fence to charge up. I ran into Paris, trying to draw attention to myself by slamming my gauntleted hand against my chest plate. "Hey! Louvan! Whatever you're doing, you need to stop now!"  
"Sorry, Louvan can't come to the phone right now. Blood Moon is in charge now."

I looked at her and her suit had changed. Instead of the usual dark blue and grey color scheme, her outfit had gone fully black wit the moon symbol on her necklace being red instead of white.

"What are you doing? You're just terrorizing innocent people." I told her as I brought my fists up in front of me.

"That was the plan." She smirked as she pulled her knife from its sheath. "Gotta draw out the other two somehow."  
"I won't need the other two." I told her as the lion plates formed over my fists.

"Oh I'm so scared!" She said sarcastically. "Soon you'll be joining me."

"Doubtful." I rushed towards her, swinging down with my right arm.

She swiftly moved to the side, jabbed her elbow into my back. Just like that she vanished into the darkness.  
"Now would be a great time to suddenly develop night vision." I talked to myself as I listened intently for her.

"Leonidas!" Ladybug's voice chimed in as she and Cat noir arrived.

"Louvan's been akumatized. Cat, you can see in the dark, try to lure her out. Ladybug, back to back with me and we stay in the light. I don't know how, but she's been making people freak out."

I knew she would go for Cat noir first. She was trying to pull him away from us though. First it was her knocking over some pots and other random items on the roofs.

"Try and get at her with your stick, Cat."

When he did, she grabbed it. "Give me your miraculous, and this can all be over, kitty." She shifted her weight and swung him over the side so he was only holding onto the pole.

Following the angle of the pole, I took my best guess as to where she would be and fired off "Transmuter's roar!" A torrent of flames shot out and it didn't hit her, but did show us where she was with the light that came from the fire. Ladybug flung her yo-yo towards her to get the weapon to wrap her up.

Blood Moon held up her knife, attempting to cut free.

Cat noir shortened his staff until he was closer to the ground, then hopped off. "Cataclysm." He tapped the knife and it turned to rusted dust. We all were kind of surprised when an akuma came fluttering out of it. Ladybug pulled back her yo-yo and captured the akuma, de-evilizing Louvan.

I walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "You okay?"

"I-" She looked at her hand almost frustrated before running off.

"Louvan!" I started to move after her, but I heard my necklace beeping. "Ladybug, could you-"

"Don't worry about it." She zoomed off after Louvan with her yo-yo.

* * *

"Louvan?" Ladybug asked calmly.

I hid in a tree by the park. I couldn't stand myself right now. How could I be so stupid?!

"How are you doing?"

I nearly fell out of the tree. How did she see me up here? "I'd rather be alone right now." I sighed.

"Sometimes when we want to be alone is the time we need to be around others the most."

I tensed up as she sat next to me. "Ladybug…" I sighed. "I-I'm sorry!" Tears started to roll down my cheeks and onto my face mask.

"Oh, uh, it's okay. We all have bad days. At least Hawkmoth didn't figure out who you were under the mask."

"D'oh!" I facepalmed. "I didn't even think about that! I was more concerned about that stupid bat guy!"

She raised an eyebrow. "Bat guy?"

"Yeah. I was out wandering around and I saw this guy in some kind of bat costume doing tricks. He was getting too close to the homes for comfort so I tried to lure him away. We flew to the park and he showed off some tricks, and then he did some kind of screech and my emotions went all over the place. Then the Hawkmoth stuff happened and things got blurry!"

"I'll be sure to let the others know about him. Just be sure to call one of us the next time you see him."

"How do I call you? Not like you guys have a superhero light signal."

"Didn't your kwami tell you how to communicate with your knife?"

"No… should he have?"

"Yeah, a little."

"Oops… I'll pester him when we get home… He better not eat all his cookies tonight." I groaned. "Marinette's family is gonna love me…" I mumbled.

Ladybug chuckled a little. "I'm sure they won't be complaining as long as you're paying."

"Always. Gotta give them extra too. They're so nice, and they deserve so much more than they charge sometimes."

"I'm sure they appreciate it."

I smiled feeling a little better now. "Thank you."

"Not a problem. We've gotta stick together." She smiled to me.

"Some of us are stuck like glue!" Cat noir added.

"When did you get here?!" We asked.

"Just now."

"Little late to the party. Are cats usually late?"

"Hey, my kwami needed to recharge."

"Sorry for the trouble…" I apologized again.

"Hey, don't worry, we got it all handled."

"Thank you. Good night, guys." I said as I jumped down from the tree.

"Good night, Louvan. I hope you sleep well." Ladybug said.

"Night. May your dreams be filled with moi." Cat noir joked.

"Maybe chasing you up a tree. Woof!" I joked back.

"Ah, I'd already be in the tree, go home and sleep."

"No k-i-s-s-i-n-g with Ladybug. She might friend zone you again."

"Blegh, only in his dreams." Ladybug said.

"Oh, come on, my lady, you haven't thought about us even once?"

I laughed as I went home. It's so funny to me actually. They remind me of how Marinette acts about Adrien, but he's so oblivious. Once I was home I sighed as I flopped in bed. Kerberos didn't even wait for me to say new moon. It was okay though. He always knew home was the safest place. I took off my miraculous and played with the charm.

"You know, there was something _really _familiar about that bat guy."

"If you say Batman I'll throw a comic book at you." I joked. He knew my comics were across the room and that I would never throw them. "You think so?"

"Yeah, his suit looked like it might've belonged to a miraculous holder."

"Oh?" I put my necklace on my night stand as I sat up.

"Yeah, like how you have your miraculous, Leonidas has his, Cat noir has his, and Ladybug has hers. There are some common things that carry over from the first user through all the different users."

"Like what?"

"Like the spots for Ladybug, or green eyes for Cat, or a lion head covering for the lion."

"So we look for something with a bat then!"

"Yeah, basically."

"Kerberos, you're amazing!" I grabbed a cookie out of the jar on my desk and handed it to him.

"YAY!" He took it and started eating it ravenously.

"I wonder if Master Fu knows anything about a bat… I know what we're doing tomorrow!"

"Woo! I get to visit everyone!"

I chuckled. "Then it's settled!"

* * *

"I see. And you are positive that he was another miraculous holder?" Master Fu asked.  
"He ticked all the boxes." Kerberos told him.

"What Kerberos said." I agreed.

"Sorry, Cynthia is a little out of it. She had a really rough night last night." Kerberos sighed as he sat on my head.

"Most would be after something like what she went through, it is fine. I will look through what parts of the book I have to see if I can find anything about the bat."

"Thank you. Master Fu, may I speak with you, more one on one?" Kerberos flew into the music box.

"Of course. What is on your mind?"

"I really appreciate you gifting me a miraculous, but I'm not sure I'm ready, or that it's a good fit. I'm a slow thinker, and I don't feel like that's good for what we do. I can't act on an instinct like the others. I love Kerberos with all my heart, but-"

"Cynthia, do you know why I chose who I did to wield the powers of the miraculous?"

I shook my head no. "All I did was try to defend you when those teens were harassing you."

"Exactly. You demonstrated your worth as a person then. I did not pick warriors, or scholars, or healers. I picked good people."

I smirked a little as I rolled my eyes trying to avoid eye contact.

"If you do not think you can fight, you do not have to. All miraculous are flexible in their use. The wolf especially so."

I looked over at the music box. Kerberos instantly popped out. "You're silly." I told the fuzz ball as he flew back over and sat on my head. "So, you think we can be flexible?"

"Extremely so. You just need to think of creative ways to utilize shadow veil."

"Thank you, Master Fu."

"You're welcome, Cynthia. Take good care of yourself."

"You too." Kerberos hid in my jacket pocket as we walked home.

"Do you wanna practice later?" Kerberos asked me from my pocket.

"I don't know. Can we sit down and talk at home?"

"Yeah, sure."


	5. Chapter 5

"I really hope Louvan is feeling alright." I told Shizu. "She looked like she was freaking out."  
"Have faith in your peers. Ladybug likely found her only a few minutes after you asked her to."

"Why can't we stay a hero for a bit longer than 5 minutes?"  
"Are you kidding? The power of the miraculous are not to be used indefinitely by children."

"Then when will you see me as more than a child?"  
"When you're older." He joked before getting into my pocket.  
I rolled my eyes as I locked the door on my way out. Today was going to be a great day. I was going back home to visit my parents for the weekend. I flung my bag over my shoulder and left the dorm building for the train station with a smile stuck on my face. I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket and pulled it out to see what was up. It was Marinette asking if I was free today to talk about something. I sighed and told her I couldn't because I was going to my parents' today. Well, that was the plan originally. Then I found out in a pretty rough way that someone had been akumatized. I was just about to head into the train station when I saw in the reflection of the glass door something that was off. Somebody was walking up behind me, so I turned and looked at them. They then proceeded to flick me through the doors and into a stopped train. I fell onto the ground, coughing as it felt like my chest was just hit by a major league baseball player with a bat eight times. I looked up at them again, and saw that they were a person fused with a crab, and their pincer was smoking. "You're the kid that talked to all of the heroes before. You know where they are?"

I looked around, but they were definitely talking to me. "I've got… no idea." I told them, still trying to get my breath.

"Well, you'll at least serve as good bait." They walked forward, grabbing me by the front of my shirt with their pincer and lifting me up.

"We'll see." I told them as I swung my hand at their face, and when I hit it, my hand hurt a lot more than they did.

"You can't hurt me like that, my carapace is too tough, now be a good boy and calm down."

I held onto their pincer and looked around at the other people in the train station. I saw a lot of scared faces staring at the villain and me. "Fine. What do you want?"  
"You're the boy who met the heroes, they'll come to get you when they realize what situation you're in." The beetle villain hopped down onto the tracks, pulling up one of the rails and wrapping it around me before tossing me back onto the platform.

"And what makes you think you can beat them? Leonidas' armor is at least as strong as your shell."

"None of them will be able to harm me in anyway, my shell is too thick." The villain patted their torso, which was covered in chitin.

* * *

After visiting Master Fu, Kerberos and I went home. I was laying in bed thinking, and Kerberos was curled up with me. I was lightly petting his head as I sketched random ideas in my notebook.

"So, you wanna talk?" He asked me.

"I don't know… I don't wanna make you upset."

"If you make me upset, you'll just have to give me a cookie to make me feel better."

I chuckled, but then sighed as I closed the book. "Kerberos, I really don't know what to do. I'm not a fighter. I'm not good at it no matter how much we practice. I'm naive, and slow when we're out there. I don't think I'm meant to be out there."

"What about with that mirror villain? If you hadn't shown up the others were pretty much screwed."

"I got Akumatized though."

"A lot of people do. And it got fixed in the end, so there's nothing to worry about, right?"

"I was stupid though. Instead of trying to stop him I just let him do his thing."

"From what I know about the butterfly miraculous, most people just let the akuma take over. It takes an exceptionally strong force of will to not give in immediately."

"I was talking about the bat guy."

"Ohhhhhhhhh. To be fair, we didn't know he was a bad guy then."

"I guess." With a sigh I hit my head against the wall several times. Then my phone buzzed with a news notification.

"Go time!" Kerberos cheered.

"Not go time." I said quickly looking over the notification. "Cat noir, Ladybug, and Leonidas can take care of it without me."

Kerberos looked at the notification, and stared really hard at the picture on the side. "Isn't that Devain?" He pointed at a person with a train rail wrapped around them.

"What?!" I whined and rubbed my forehead. "I-I can't!"

"But we've gotta go help your friend! He's important to you, right?!"

"Doh! Full moon!" I jumped out of bed and Kerberos cheered. I flew out the window and skipped over buildings to get to the train station.

Looking around, I saw a pair of other heroes moving quickly towards the train station too, but no Leonidas for some reason. Where was he? I thought as I hit the ground in front of the entrance.

* * *

"Ah, they've started to arrive." The villain said as they were staring towards the door. "Don't worry, kid, soon you'll be free to go."

The door opened and Louvan with Ladybug and Cat noir strolled in.

"Well, looks like someone's been training." Cat punned.

"Yeah, cool, great joke, could I get some help?" I asked.

"No!" The crab villain yelled at me. "Not until they give me their miraculous!"

"Let Devain go and maybe we will." Louvan said.

The crab picked me up by the rail with it in his claw. "The miraculous first."

"Fine." Was she crazy?!

"No, no, no, no, no, no." I said. "You guys have saved lots of people, you being able to keep doing that isn't worth me."

Louvan cautiously walked over to him and acted like she was going to take her necklace off before she swung her knife.

The villain moved their claw up to block the swing and snapped it incredibly quickly, making a deafening boom that released a bit of a shockwave. I started hacking again with it knocking the air out of me and making it feel like my lungs were shaking against my ribs. "Would anyone else like to step up to me?" They taunted.

"More like step on. Shadow Veil!"

My vision went black and I heard a cracking come from behind me, near the crab's back, before I was let go and I fell over, not really given any time to recover from the sonic boom that just happened next to me.

"Cat! Get him and Ladybug outta here. I'll lure crabby out in a sec."

Soon, I felt myself get picked up and pulled out of the darkness by Cat as he pulled Ladybug along by the hand. I stood up on my own a few minutes after he got me out, and told them, "Don't worry about me, she needs your help more."

"We're not just going to le-"  
"GO!" I yelled at them. "Each one of you are worth at least ten of me! So go save ten people instead of one!"

They backed away, a bit surprised. "We'll be right back." Ladybug told me before they leapt off into action.

Finally, some privacy. "Shizu, let's do this."

My kwami flew out of my pocket. "Devain, you can't be serious. You're in no condition to fight."  
"I am, and you can't keep me from helping. Mane event." Shizu swirled into my necklace and my armor put itself on with the help of the golden light. I clenched my fist to make the lion heads on my hands and ate through the rail restraining me. I came out from my hiding spot to see the three of them flipping around the villain acrobatically, trying to get behind him to handle him easily, but he was moving very quickly to stop them. "Hey, rangoon boy!" I taunted the crab as I walked towards him. "How about you take on someone your own caliber?!"

The other three looked at me incredulously.

The crab laughed. "My own caliber? You're not even a beebee compared to me." He leapt towards me, making a sonic boom once he got close, but my armor protected me from a majority of the force as he swung down at me with a claw. I caught it before he could hit me, and I swung him over my head into the ground. He wasn't done though as he swept my legs out from under me and jumped up, with his claw going for my neck. I held up my arms in front of me as I coughed a bit because of the repeated shocks to my abdomen. But he never hit me because Ladybug had wrapped up his arm.

"You're not getting anyone else today!" Ladybug told him as she tightened her yo-yo on him and cracked his claw, making a black and purple butterfly fly out before being captured and purified.

"And that is the value of a good distraction." I said as I got up and coughed a little.

"You okay? You're coughing a lot." Cat questioned me.

"I'm fine." I coughed again. "Just something caught in my throat.

I caught Louvan leaving out of the corner of my eye. She didn't even say see ya later.

"Hey, where you off to?" I asked once I caught up.

"Hm? Just, you know, leaving…"

"In such a rush? What's the occasion?"

"I just have a lot to think about." She shrugged and kicked a pebble. "Just… don't be surprised if you don't see me as much."

"What? Why?" I was surprised. I thought the other two had helped her work through this.

"I need to figure out another way to help. The fights, they're your, Cat's, and Ladybug's thing. I'm not… I don't know… not a front lines kinda girl?"

"Well, you don't need to be front lines. That's already getting kind of crowded as is."

"I guess. I'd rather talk things out before a fight and understand the why… Guess you can't think when you're akumatized though."

"Probably not. If anything, what you're doing is what Hawk Moth wants. Nothing more, nothing less."

A beep sounded from her necklace and she jumped a bit. There were only two marks left. "I, uh, I'd better go."

"Right. Fair enough." I turned and started to walk the other way.

"Maybe talk later?"

"Later, but not tonight. I've got something I need to get to that I'm already late for."

"Okay." She ran off.

I stretched my arms up as I said, "Shizu, mane blown." My armor receded back into the necklace as Shizu came out of my necklace.

"You were slow."  
"Yeah, well, my ribs kind of felt like they were imploding."  
"And that's why I said you shouldn't join the fight."  
"You also said I shouldn't pretend to be a coward. Being a hero is about getting involved when you should, not when you have to, right?"  
Shizu sighed. "One of these days, you are going to be defeated by a villain and I will be forced to do their bidding forever."  
"Yeah, sure, and one day you'll let me make my own decisions." I told him sarcastically. "Come on and get in my pocket, we need to go see if the train station will give me a replacement ticket since I think our train was delayed." I joked a bit.

* * *

Back to laying in bed I went. Kerberos ate a cookie and sat with me again. I looked at him waiting to talk. I knew he probably wouldn't shut up.

"Do you see what I meant now?"

"That was only because of when I go fishing. If I didn't know to aim for the back butt area it would have gone worse."

"And if you weren't there, nobody would've known that."

"You can't use one instance to tell me I should be out there."

"What about last time when you blinded the mirror villain? Or when you took down the trucker villain really fast?"

"I got lucky." I picked the fuzz ball up and sat him on my shoulder. "What did Master Fu mean with Shadow Veil? How else can I use it? It makes things around me dark, and Cat, and I are the only ones that can see. Ladybug and Leo are literally left in the dark then."

"Well… you use it right now as an ambush tactic, right? What's the opposite of an ambush?"

"Defense?"

"Yeah. If they can't see you, they can't hit you." He smiled like he just had a brilliant idea.

"But that plays an advantage to the ambush anyway. It keeps me on the defensive position till we attack."

"There's also maybe using it to run away when things get too dicey for you by yourself. The others don't really have a get out of jail free card like that. Sometimes a retreat is the best thing you can do."

"Fair enough."

"You might even be able to use it with Cat to get a HUGE advantage in a fight." He put his paws over his eyes before lifting them up like peek-a-boo. "You know, since you guys can see in the dark."

"True, and that would also be good if we are split up from Ladybug and/or Leo. We can get them worn out and they could end it, or if we're against a larger group it breaks it up into something smaller."

"Oh, that reminds me, did Leo seem off today? He didn't seem as steady as usual."

"Yeah, like he was hurt or something before the fight."

"Maybe he was working out and pulled something." Kerberos looked up with a cocked head and a questioning look on his face. "Does he work out?"

"He is kinda scrawny, so I don't think so."

"We really need to see who is the physically strongest out of everyone some time."

I felt my phone buzz in my pocket and when I looked at it, the notification was from Devain.

"Oh! I should call Devain!" I messed with my phone till I got to the call screen. It rang once, twice, and a third time. "Please pick up…"

"Hey, I'm alive." He answered it. "How's your day been?"

"Better now. I'm so glad you're okay!" I smiled as I started to walk around the room. Kerberos watched then got an evil look like he had an idea.

"Relatively. I got into the train's bathroom to check myself out and I don't think I've ever seen a bruise that big."

"Ow. Ice packs always help."

"Yeah, I've got my chair back with some wrapped ice sitting on me. For some reason, the staff is being really accommodating." How he was able to joke about this already, I will never know.

"Well, you were on the news so they probably don't wanna look bad with you not getting care." I chuckled. "All to make them look better."

"I was on the news? Dang, I should probably let everyone else know that I'm not in the hospital before I get flooded with well wishes."

"Probably. Where are you off to anyway?"

"Out of town to spend some time with my parents. Remember when I said they didn't really live nearby?"

"Yeah, yeah. Well, have fun and don't be on the news again." I chuckled.

He laughed before saying, "I'll try to stay off it for bad reasons. Talk to you later."

"Yep. Talk to you later." I hung up and smiled a little then looked at Kerberos. "What was that grin?"

"Oh, nothing. I just think you miiiiight be enjoying him almost as much as I enjoy cookies."

"What?" I tilted my head to the side. "You love cookies. Devain is my best friend."

"For nowwwww." He giggled.

"Whatever, fluffy. Don't make me shock you."

"Nooooo, last time you did that it took hours to get my floof down."

"You got three seconds to hide then." I said as I started shuffling my fuzzy socks on the carpet. "Three, two-"

"Noooooooooo!" He flew into my closet between my shirts.

"I'm gonna get you!" I started sliding all the shirts around and throwing some onto the bed.

"No you're not!" Every time I pulled away a shirt he was hiding behind, he scooted to a different part of the rack. When I had thrown all of the shirts, he looked around before flying between my knees.

Turning around there was no sign of him. "Hmmm. Maybe I'll just eat a cookie or two." I opened the jar and shocked myself a bit. I shuffled the jar around for a second and put the lid on, then rubbed my socks on the carpet again. "Guess he doesn't want a cookie. More for me."

He flew out quickly and phased through the jar to the inside to start eating.

"Cheater!"

"Cynthia?" My mom yelled up the stairs.

"Yeah, Mom?"

She started walking up the stairs. "Why are you being so loud?"

"Cleaning out my closet! Gotta make room for my new designs!"

"Keep it down then, We're going to be sleeping soon."

"Sorry! Night. Love you."

"Love you too."

Kerberos poked his head out of the cookie jar then flew over to me. He was holding onto two cookies. "Here, have one. That looked stressful."

"You know they can't find out about you. They already thought I snuck in a dog before." I broke the cookie in half and handed him the other part of it. I didn't really want all of it. They're for him anyway. When I handed back the piece of cookie, a spark jumped from me to Kerberos, and his fur stood on end.

"Gosh darnit."

"Sorry!"


	6. Chapter 6

Thankfully, there were no more akuma incidents while I was visiting my family, so I got to spend a very nice time with them. Unfortunately, all the good times go by fast, so soon I was on a train back to Paris.

I felt my phone buzz. It was a text for Cynthia. She was just saying hello and that she hoped I had a great time at my parents.

I texted back saying I had a blast and that I was on the train back right now.

Unfortunately, that's where my luck ran out. Someone in a black costume with mask on their face, and large devices on their ears to make them look like a bat came into the train car. "Hello, all of you. You may have heard, or you may not have, but I am someone like Ladybug, Cat noir, Carapace, and all those other heroes. I've got a miraculous. And I've heard on good authority that someone on this train does too. I'm looking for Leonidas. The holder of the lion miraculous."

The color drained from my face. How did he find me? He can't know who I am, or else he would've used my civilian name. So, how could he have known where I would be?

"Listen up, you big pussy cat, you've got until this train arrives in Paris to out yourself, or else I turn this whole train into victims for Hawkmoth."

I clenched my fists tightly and stood up. "What if you've got the wrong train? Last I checked, nobody knew who the heroes were behind their masks."

"Oh, I recognize you. You're the kid who got caught up with that crab guy. What, you think since you made it through one encounter with an akuma that you can handle yourself?"

"No, I just see that you're somebody who needs to be stopped before this gets out of hand."

"And what are you gonna do? Fight me? Please, kid, only miraculous holders and akumas can hold a candle to me."

"Care to test that?" I asked him, wrapping a pair of hoodies I had packed around my hands and getting into my usual fighting stance.

"Well, since you're so willing." He slid a pair of folded fans down his arms into his hands and unfurled them to show blades on the ends. He ran towards me with them and swung like he was a living tornado. I ducked and dodged around, my experience as Leonidas helping me avoid the worst of him, but I still had a few small cuts. The other passengers on the train watched and slid back in their seats to avoid getting hurt. Then I did the unthinkable and moved in closer to stop his arm with my cloth covered hand and forearm and knee him in the gut. He let out a small bit of breath before slamming his mask into my face, forcing me to stumble backwards. "You have to know that all the miraculous improve everything about their user's physicality."

"Then you wouldn't stand a chance against the heroes if you're having any trouble with me."

He picked me up by my collar and threw me to the ground. "Bold of you to say that when I've already beaten one of them."

"You're the one that made Louvan an akuma." I feigned just figuring it out.

"Bingo, buckaroo."

"Well, I guess I need keep Leonidas from getting the same treatment." I got up from the floor and got back in my stance.

"You're a stubborn dick." He dragged a finger over his fan and the time showed itself on it. "You're not worth the time." He closed the fan before extending an arm in my direction, and a wing shot out, knocking me back a few feet before swinging it up into my chin. He pulled the wing back in before throwing the blunt end of the fan at my forehead and he dashed up to me running up my legs and torso before shoving my face down with his foot and catching his fan. "Anyone else feel like playing hero?"

I couldn't beat him without becoming Leonidas, but I can't become Leonidas with all these people watching me. "Fine, you win. Can I go to the bathroom to clean up?"

"Hey, you." He pointed at a random person sitting nearby. "Go to the bathroom, get some toilet paper and bring it here for him." They nodded and quickly left to go get what he asked for. "You're staying where I can see you." He told me as he moved his feet off of me.

I sat up and looked down at myself, and I saw that there were actually quite a lot of small cuts I hadn't felt happen. I guess adrenaline was working over time. The person came back with an armful of toilet paper that they started wrapping around my cuts.

"Thanks for trying." They whispered to me.

I smiled a little bit before looking up at the bat guy, who was keeping an eye on the rest of the folks in the train car. "Come on, Leo. I know you're here, just show up so that no one else has to get beat."

"If you distract him, I can call for help. I've got friends in Paris who can get the word out to get the heroes here." I whispered to my makeshift medic.

They looked scared but nodded. They stood up and walked towards the bat guy. "Hey, do you, um, want some water or something? Fighting that guy looked like a lot of work."

While they talked to bat guy, I slipped into the bathroom and saw a few texts from Cynthia. I opened up my phone and messaged her saying "Bat villain on train looking for Leonidas, please spread this around so that people come to help."

* * *

As soon as I saw Devain's text I smiled at Kerberos. "Hey bud! You know what time it is!?"

"Time to get Devain from the train?"

"Yep. Let's go! Full moon!"

"Woooooo!" He got sucked into the choker and my costume unfurled onto me. I quickly called Ladybug and Cat to let them know. I tried calling Leonidas, but he wasn't picking up for some reason. Hopefully they would join me soon. I maneuvered through Paris quickly to get to the tracks the train would come in on, and I started to run along them to get to the train quicker. I saw the lights of the train coming now, so I leapt up and landed shakily on the front car's roof. I climbed down between the cars and walked into the train car.

"Looking for a man bat. Pizza delivery." I said.

Bat guy turned around surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to see you buddy. How ya been? Loved the akuma gift from you and Hawk Moth by the way!"

"You're not the one I'm here for." He flicked a pair of fans into his hands and opened them to show that they were bladed.

"Hey!" I yelled. "Fight fair." I said as I spun my knife in my hand. "Or are you chicken?"

He dashed at me, slashing and spinning incredibly quickly, looking to find purchase with his blades any where he could.

* * *

Good, someone is here. With Louvan drawing the attention of most of the car, I had the opportunity to slip out the other train car door. "Shizu, we've gotta work fast. Mane event." I flicked my gold chain necklace upwards and he zoomed into it. Five triangular pieces sprung out of it and a golden light spread down my torso, before a breastplate slammed into place. The glow then started to fold out of the arm holes of the breastplate like tiny pieces of metal as scale mail coated them down to the forearms. Then I slammed my fist into my palm and a pair of gauntlets with fangs coming out of the knuckles appeared. I tapped the toe of my shoe on the ground a couple of times before slamming my foot down on the ground making an armored boot appear on it, and swinging the other foot in front made the golden glow travel up to make the second boot. The glow then traveled down my legs from my torso and up them from the boots to meet in the middle and create more scale mail. I swung my arm out to the side and a length of chain extended from the base of my back that ended in a tuft of fur. Turning my hand upwards, a helm with the look of a roaring lion appeared in it and I set it on my head before it sealed itself to the rest of the suit. I opened the door loudly and looked straight at bat boy. "Heard you were looking for me." I brought my fists up.

He grinned. "Have been for a while." He turned from Louvan and barrelled towards me. "Echo emotions!" He opened up his wings as a glow emanated from them and the devices in his ears before the energy shot itself into me and I felt so empty almost immediately. Why was I even fighting him? What was the point in me doing this? He beat me easily, so why do I think I have a chance now?

"Thanks for showing up." The bat boy smiled.

Sparks flew from his arms as Louvan's knife cut through the electronics.

"You bitch." He spun around delivering a roundhouse kick to her. "I'm going to get out of here before the fun begins." He dashed passed me and out the door.

"Leo, snap out of it." Louvan lightly slapped the sides of my face with her hands. "Ladybug and Cat noir can focus on him. You focus on me."

"What will that solve?"

"Leo!" She was getting frustrated… with herself? "You need to focus and stop with the bad thoughts. That's what happened to me before Hawk Moth got me, understand?"

"Why do we even fight him? We don't even know what he wants the miraculous for."

"We will figure it out. Now get your ger face on. We're not useless. We keep Paris safe, and fix the damage. Think about the people you save. Think about your family!"

"We can't fix the akumas though."  
"Yes we can!" She pulled me into an empty part of the train and really slapped me. "Snap out of it, please!"

"Don't hit me again."

"Sorry…" Her tone quickly softened. She hugged me tightly? What was that for?

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to make your head back in the right place… I really don't know how to fix it so I'm trying everything."

"Ladybug fixed you by getting your akuma."  
"I'm not letting you get akumatized." She looked up at me worried.

"Why not? All I seem to be good for is showing up late and getting beaten."

"You're still learning, just like I am. I'm not good at fighting either. I was ready to throw the towel in because of it."

"But I was good at fighting. And the passed two times I've been taken down easily."

"We all have off days. I'm sure Ladybug and Cat could give you plenty of stories."

"The bat was specifically gunning for me though, so he knew he could beat me."

"He kinda aimed for me too the day I got akumatized. He used my weakness against me, and he's doing the same to you. Leonidas, please. You need to snap out of it." She was begging at this point. The look of worry and confusion was written all over the bit of her visible face.

"Why? What's the worst I could while akumatized? You, Ladybug, and Cat could easily beat me if you worked together."

"And not on our own. We are a team. Teams work together. As much as I hate teams it's how it works. You work so well with Cat and Ladybug. Try working with me."

Just passed her, I saw an akuma come through the wall of the train and flutter toward us. "Sorry." I grabbed her arms and threw her out of the way before it went into my right gauntlet.

"NO!" Louvan yelled.

"Duskmane, your comrade lacks the understanding to bolster your spirits. I'm giving you the power to show all of them exactly what you feel, but in return, I need you to gather the miraculous." Hawk Moth's voice gave me a bargain.


	7. Chapter 7

As soon as I saw Hawk Moth's symbol over his face I leapt for the gauntlet. I pulled with all my might on this gauntlet and it wouldn't budge. My heart felt like it was running a marathon away from a bomb ready to blow.

His transformation shifted his armor's usual golden sheen for a matte black finish and his gauntlet shifted to be a massive piece of armor coating his forearm with tendrils coming out instead of fingers that each ended with a thick claw. He grabbed my arm off of his transformed gauntlet and held me in front of him. "You have something that I need to get." His big gauntlet reached for my miraculous. Despite my struggling, his gauntlet extended the metal tendrils to the back of my neck and unclasped the choker, removing it from me and turning me back to normal. "You weren't my first guess." He dropped me down before moving for the door out of the train car.

"No…" I mumbled in disbelief. My body was frozen in place. "Kerberos… Leonidas…"

He left the train car and I felt the car shake a bit as he jumped off of it.

* * *

I had put the wolf miraculous around my left wrist and clasped it there before leaping to nearby the tracks, where I saw Ladybug and Cat fighting the Bat miraculous holder. "You." I pointed my enlarged gauntlet at the bat and the metal tendrils shot out towards him, wrapping around each of his limbs and his neck. "You're responsible for this."

"Well, this is a pleasant development." He noticed the miraculous on my wrist.

"Leonidas, what did you do?!" Ladybug demanded an answer.

"I am Duskmane, and my goal is to gather the miraculous."

"Well, you've still got a few to get, and we're not giving them up without a little cat fight." Cat wasn't taking this seriously.

"I will take yours later." I threw the bat miraculous holder at Cat noir before leaping at Ladybug with my enlarged gauntlet ready to land a blow. She ducked out of the way with a surprised yell. The two boys in black got up and Cat noir ran at me, trying to grapple me. I grabbed him from my back and slammed him back first into the ground in front of me. He was yanked away before I could get his miraculous from his finger.

"Lucky charm!" Ladybug used her power to summon a fire extinguisher.

"My transmuter's roar isn't charged, that's not going to help you." I rushed in on them again, not giving them breathing room to come up with a plan. My gauntlet was matching their weapon strikes as my other hand was reaching for their miraculous when I saw openings, but they covered each other very well. Eventually, the fighting resulted in me piercing the fire extinguisher with a punch and it blasted all over my face, temporarily blinding me.

I heard Cat noir yell, "Cataclysm!" and I knew that I was finished. I swung wildly, and I felt my fist get caught by cat, which then destroyed my gauntlet. Ladybug caught the akuma in her yo-yo and then had the magical ladybugs reset everything. Including my memory of who Louvan was. "How did I get here?"  
"You were akumatized, but we saved you with a faulty fire extinguisher." Cat noir over simplified.

"You also took Louvan's miraculous." Ladybug was much more serious.

I looked down at my wrist and sure enough, there was the choker Louvan usually wore. "Well, this should probably go back to who originally owned it." I took it off and a very fluffy floating dog came out of it.

"I'm glad you're not in your scary mode now." He said before grabbing the choker and flying off.

"Are you alright Leo?" Cat asked me.  
"Yeah, bat got me with his power."

Ladybug nodded. "We need to find him again and make sure he doesn't keep doing this."

"Yeah, who knows who could be next." Cat added. "First Louvan, then you."

"I'm going to go see if Louvan is still on the train and if she's doing alright. Thank you guys for coming to help me out." I turned and started to move quickly after the train.

Louvan was nowhere to be found. Cynthia was waiting by the train though. Guess she came to check on me after the text? She was looking down at a choker deep in thought. I found a private place and the top of my gauntlet switched into a touch screen, and I tried calling Louvan, but she didn't pick up the call, so I left a message saying "Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you in anyway and I want to make sure you're okay. See you around." After that, I desuited and went down to Cynthia. "Hey, how's it going?"

She tackled me in a hug. "I was so worried about you!" Her hug felt warm and familiar. "Are you okay. I know the man bat-"

I wrapped my arms around her. "Could we not talk about it?" Now that I was back to normal old me, I felt exhausted. Fighting the bat, then getting akumatized, and probably fighting all the other miraculous holders was a lot to deal with in a very short amount of time.

"Yeah. Why don't you come over for a bit?"

"Sure." I walked with her to where she lived, not really paying attention to what was going on around us.

"How was your family?" She asked as she unlocked the door to her house.

"They're doing great. Probably less than thrilled with the situations I keep finding myself in, but they didn't bring it up while I was there."

"Probably not… Need some ice packs or anything? I have plenty in the freezer."

"I'd appreciate that, yeah."

She handed me one wrapped neatly in a towel. It was really nice. Like, repetitive habit neat. She must have noticed me thinking and laughed a bit.

"I'm extremely clumsy, so I need them a lot. I'll be back in a few minutes. Just gotta fix something on my necklace. Unless you wanna come up with me? It doesn't matter."

"Oh, sure." I followed her upstairs to her room, which was a bit messier than last time I was over. Sewing patterns were pinned to a mannequin, small pieces of fabric were also pinned to it. Other fabrics were piled on her desk, with a note on top of the pile.

"Sorry about the mess… I have a wedding I have to go to in April for my aunt and I really don't know what to make to wear." She chuckled nervously before pulling out a box with various things for jewelry making.

"No worries. My room's messy anyway and I don't really have an excuse." I sat on her bed.

She took the clasp off her necklace and put a new one on and replaced some of the hoops on it. When she was done she put the box away and grabbed a small familiar looking black box with a red symbol on top and put the necklace in there.

"So, where did you get that necklace from?" I asked curiously.

She seemed surprised for a second. "Oh, um. A, uh, very nice man gave it to me as a thank you gift." She said quickly.

"Oh, neat. That's how I got my necklace too." I pulled the chain out so it was more visible.

"Oh." It was more of a questioning tone. "I don't think I've ever noticed your necklace."

"Yeah, I don't really try to draw attention to it a lot."

"It's cool though."

"Thanks. Yours is pretty cool too, kind of weird seeing you without it on." I chuckled.

A nervous laugh slipped by. "Yeah, it's kinda like a security blanket… I feel off without it."

"Yeah, I know the feeling. A bit of vulnerability just creeping at the back of your mind."

"Exactly!" She smiled as she sat next to me.


	8. Chapter 8

**Hey all. Here's the next chapter. Just a quick reminder to you to leave your reviews when you're done reading so that I can take that feedback and improve. Anyway, thanks for reading and on to the story. **

"There is no way this is happening." I was pacing my room with Shizu floating there, watching me.

"She has a miraculous box. Or at the very least, something very similar to it."  
"Yeah, and that's what I'm worried about." I looked at him. "Shizu, if she's got a miraculous, I fought her earlier today."  
"You were not yourself when you did so."  
"But it was still me doing it, I'm the one who hurt my friend."

"No, it was Hawk Moth doing so through you. You were not the one performing those actions."

"Even so, what could she think of me now? All I've done the last few times is get put in danger and need to get bailed out."

"You also have proven to be a vital ally a number of times to the other miraculous holders."

I sighed and looked at the clock. "It's late, Shizu. I need some sleep."

* * *

I went out for a late night stroll with Kerberos flying next to me. This wasn't uncommon for us to be out late like this anymore. It helped calm him down before I went to sleep too so that was a bonus.

"I hope Leo is okay."

"You could go check on the person you think could be him."

"I would like to think Devain is not him…"

"He has a fancy necklace that looks kind of like Leo's and got it from a nice old guy, like you got yours from. What, do you need to see him transform to think about it?"

"We aren't supposed to know though!… I feel like he's figuring it out though…"

"What's the harm in knowing? I can think of two times in the past week that that information would be useful."

"Safety, security of the other. What if one of us gets kidnapped and is forced to tell? Then he's in trouble with whoever too."

"You could just pretend you don't know."

"Have you ever watched any movies or heard of any situation that pretending worked?"

"You pretend to be someone you're not almost everyday, why wouldn't it work?"

"Doh! Fine! Full moon."

"Awoooooo!" He got into the necklace and I transformed quickly. I had a message from Leo… uh oh. I played it and heard, "Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you in anyway and I want to make sure you're okay. See you around."

I quickly made it to Devain's and stood on the roof of one of the nearby buildings. "I feel like a peeping tom…" I huffed.

Devain was heading to bed. The lights just turned off.

"New moon." I whispered. "Kerberos this feels wrong."

"Just go check on him. The light's off, so that means he's probably asleep by now."

"What am I even supposed to to? Go rooting through all his stuff and look for the box or wake him up and be like 'Hey! I think you're Leonidas!' or something?!"

"No, you know I sleep somewhere in your room, so Leonidas' probably does the same. And since you can see in the dark, you'd be able to see it no problem."

"Isn't this breaking and entering?!"

"Isn't fighting crime while not being a cop vigilante justice?"

"I hate when you're right… why can't you just look for his kwami? Shouldn't you guys be buddies or something?"

"Because you want to know too, and I'm forbidden from telling you."

I hummed as I thought for a bit. "No! I can't! I'm chicken. Let's just go home…"

"You're not a chicken, you're a wolf."

"And I'm not going in for the kill. What would I even do when I find out if he is Leo?"

"I don't know, something?"

"We're going home." I huffed. "Full moon."

* * *

Cynthia wasn't at school the next day. Was she okay? I texted her asking if she was alright, but my phone got taken away soon after, so I never saw her response.

As I went through the day, I looked around for her, even asking around if people knew where she was. Eventually at the end of the day when I got my phone back, I saw that she had taken off because she wasn't feeling too great, and that I probably shouldn't come over for anything because it might rub off on me. Well, luckily for her, my immune system is second to none, so I get some of my stuff together from my place and head over to surprise her. "Did she not explicitly tell you to not do this?" Shizu asked as I was getting stuff together.

"Because she was afraid of me getting sick. I've not been sick for at least a decade." I told my kwami proudly.

"And if you get sick now, she will feel incredibly guilty."  
"Then I won't get sick." I said with a grin.

"It's a possibility you must prepare for."  
"If I promise to wash my hands when I get back, will you be okay with going?" I half-joked.

He sighed. "That's adequate."

"Awesome." I finished getting the stuff together and started making my way to her place. Coming up on the door, I rang the doorbell and waited for somebody to answer.

"Devain!" Cynthia's mom greeted me. "How are you? Come in, dear!"

"I'm doing fine. I heard that Cynthia was taking a day off because she wasn't feeling well, so I wanted to try and brighten her day a little."

"Oh, I'm sure she'd love it. She's been talking to herself all day."

"Well, now she'll have company besides the voices in her head." I told her with a smile as I started up the stairs. I knocked on her door and said "Cynthia, I know you told me not to come, but I wanted to help put you in a good mood."

"Devain?" She looked at me surprised as she opened the door. "Hi! Uh… hi."

"Hi." I smiled. "Can I come in? I brought games."

She nodded and stepped aside.

I walked into her room and set my bag on her bed. "Go through it and pick what you want to play."

"Surprise me."

I searched through the games I brought and held up a few of them. "So, this one is a kart racer, this one's a fighting game, and this one's puzzles."

"Kart racing." She quickly grabbed the game and put it in the console. It was fun seeing her get excited about something.

"Cool. So, do you want to learn how to drive before we actually play? Or do you want to crash a couple of times to figure it out?"

"I'll crash a few times." She giggled a little as the game loaded.

"Enjoy yourself." I told her as she navigated through the menus of the game.

She crashed several times. Some were her not paying attention, failed drifts, and just trying to learn the tracks. She eventually got the hang of it though.

"Are you ready to compete now?" I asked her.

"Sure. I'm not gonna be great though."

I shrugged. "No one is on their first try." I turned on a second controller and we started to race through a few courses. I wasn't really trying very hard to win, but I still ended up getting a pretty high place in the races we did. I glanced over at her to see she didn't look like she was having that great of a time. "You want to play a different game?"

"How the hell are you so good at this?"

I shrugged. "I just pick up on things quick, so games are like second nature to me."

"Must be nice… the only game I'm okay at is Zelda games."

"You want to play that?"

"No because then…" She ran to her closet and pulled out a Master Sword and Hylian Shield. "Then I'll want to get into cosplay."

"Honestly, both sound fun."

"This closet is all cosplays. If you wanna look. I keep everything in bags with a label and picture, and all my wigs are on the top shelf. Some long wigs hang over some of the costumes…" She was blushing a little, but was smiling as she looked in her closet.

"Which one is your favorite?"

"Ummm…" she pulled out a pink and white ball gown with a pink hat with flowers on it. There was a small bag of accessories that had more pink flowers and some bows in it. "This, oooooorrr," she pulled out a not quite complete purple skirt and shirt with puffy sleeves, "this. The pink dress is Ciel from Black Butler when he had to disguise himself as a girl, and this one is almost done. It's Rapunzel from Tangled." She shrugged and swayed side to side a bit.

"I think they're really cool."

She seemed a bit surprised. "Really? You think so?"

"Definitely."

"Thanks! Not many people know I cosplay surprisingly."

"I think if you included some other people, they'd really enjoy it."

"Is that a hint?" She rolled her eyes a bit but smiled.

"You take it however you want to take it." I jokingly winked at her.

"Seriously?!" She quickly hung her cosplays back up and leaped onto the bed. "So… What were you thinking exactly?"

"Hm…" An idea crept into my head and a grin started to show up on my face. "I've always thought I had a similar build to Cat Noir."

"You'd be okay running around in leather?"

"It'd be a lot lighter than what I normally fight in." I muttered. "Yeah, definitely."

"Fight in? Do you do karate or something?"

"Yup." I lied.

"That's cool."

"Yeah, I have fun with it. It's part of the reason I could actually stand against that bat guy." My fingers absentmindedly rubbed my arms where he had cut them.

"That's actually pretty cool."

"Definitely. So, you think you could get a Cat cosplay in the works for me?"

"Definitely." She grabbed a tape measure and told me to stand up, she took my measurements. "Give me two or three days and it'll be done. Hopefully no crazy projects this week."

"If there is, I'll try my best to help you out with them."

"Thanks, Devain."

"Not a problem, anything I can do to make your life easier, just let me know."

She smiled as she took her book back over to her desk, dusted off a small shelf she noticed then sneezed.

"Bless you!" A fuzz ball flew out of the cookie jar on her desk

She quickly grabbed the fuzz and put it in her jacket pocket.

"So… what was that?" I asked her.

"Clump of dust? Uh…. want a cookie?! Marinette's parents made them!"

"Do clumps of dust usually talk in your house?"

"Talking? I didn't hear anything."

"It said bless you."

"Okay! You can't tell ANYONE. Promise me." She held out her pinky to me.

"I promise." I locked my pinkie with hers.

She sighed and pulled the floof out of her pocket. "This is Kerberos. He's a Kwami."

I felt a massive feeling of shook shoot into my brain when she said that, but I needed to play dumb, or else I would reveal myself too. "Kwami? What's that?" I asked nervously.

"He… He powers my Miraculous," she pointed to her necklace, "and transforms me into one of the heroes of Paris."


	9. Chapter 9

"Wait, what?" I didn't need to feign surprise anymore. "YOU are one of the heroes of Paris?"

"Yes. Don't freak out, please…" The fuzzy, cookie crumbed, Kwami sat on his head. Looking a little closer at him he kinda looked like a wolf.

"Huh. He's cute."

"You think I'm cute?! I'm adorable! I love this guy already Cynthia! He's a keeper. Now… if he just brings me some cookies, it's a done set deal." Kerberos flew over to me and smiled. "Bonus he seems really trustworthy."

I chuckled a little bit. "He seems like he'd be fun to be around. I'll be sure to get you your bribe later." I joked.

"Sold! I like him!"

Cynthia hit her head into her pillow with a thud. "Take him. He's the reason I'm so tired at school…"

"And here I thought it was from all the super heroing."

"No. He's hyper most nights and howls at the full moons for hours…"

"How have your parents not found him yet?"

"He's usually awesome at hiding."

"Unless you happen to sneeze." I joked.

"Well, excuse me for being polite."

"Could have saved it for later."

"So… which one are you?"

She nervously played with her necklace and looked at Kerberos. She started pacing around her room a little bit.

"It's fine if you don't want to tell me." I leaned back on my hands.

"Thanks." She smiled and sat down again on the bed. "Who do you think I am?" She quickly asked.

"Hm…" I rubbed my chin and looked at her, Kerberos, and the necklace she was messing with. Those all seemed at least kind of important to this. "If I had to guess, Louvan. She's a wolf, and Kerberos is a wolf. Or at least a dog."

"Man, he's good." Kerberos commented.

"Kerberos…" Cynthia mumbled.

"Now might be a good time for you to stop talking, bud." I patted the wolf on the head.

"Oops…" His ears folded down as he looked at Cynthia. "Sorry…"

"So… if you need help with anything outside of superhero stuff, just let me know. Pretty sure I'd just slow you and the others down." I lied about the last part. Shizu made me way strong when I'm Leonidas.

"Thanks?" She almost didn't know how to respond. "You CANNOT tell ANYONE. Got it?"

"Listen, my lips are sealed. If you want any secret of mine, pry all you want."

"Noted." She chuckled.

"Well, I need some time to process things and do boring stuff like homework. Will I be seeing you tomorrow at school?"

"As long as someone doesn't keep me up."

"I'm sooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyy." Kerberos moaned.

I laughed a little bit at them as I packed up my stuff and left. Screaming in my head the entire time.

* * *

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" is a pretty good approximation of what I was thinking when I got back to my room.

Shizu floated out of my pocket. "I must see Kerberos tonight to remind him that we do not show ourselves."  
"Wait!" I tried to grab onto him, but he just phased through my hand.

"What?" He floated barely inside my window.

"If you go talk to him at some point tonight, she'll either think I told Leonidas or that I am Leonidas. I don't want either situation happening."  
"Then when would you prefer I speak with the kwami of shadow?"  
"Tomorrow? During school, maybe?"  
"And if an akuma appears? You will be vulnerable."  
"Then I try not to get the crap kicked out of me until you get to me."

"Fine. I will pull him away from the school to remind him why we have the rules we do tomorrow."  
"Thank you." I let out a sigh of relief as I flopped on my bed. "...And while you're at it, could you ask him what she thinks of Leonidas?"  
"Why is that necessary?"  
"It isn't, I just want to know."  
"Sera would never wonder what her equals saw her as…"  
"Yeah, well, I'm not Sera." Whoever that was.

* * *

"We messed up royally, didn't we?" I asked the fluffy wolf. "What do we do now? Do we hide away for a bit, or stop entirely? We broke the biggest rule in my eyes."

"Well, we keep doing what we're doing until the new Guardian either finds out who we are, finds out that Devain found out, or finds out about a secret third option that I can't say."

"I guess." I was doubting myself again. "Kerberos, I know what Master Fu said, but can I say he was wrong?"

"Nope."

"Why not? I clearly can't take the pressure of this and I've had you for a few months and screwed up."

"Do you want to talk to somebody about it?"

"Yeah… Maybe Leo is up."

"Oh, I'd be willing to bet he is. Want me to go get him?"

"Please."

"Kay, be right back." He zipped off through my window.

* * *

"Hey, you got a few hours?" Kerberos was almost on my face very quickly.

"Holy fucking shit christ." I pushed towards my bed's headboard as the sudden appearance of the fluffy boy had startled me.

"DEVAIN!" He scolded as he crossed his arms.

"Now I know why Cynthia doesn't sleep."

"Well, excuuuuusee me!" He acted offended and put his nose up in the air. "So, she needs Leo. Well not she. Louvan needs Leo."

"Wait… how did you-"

"You think I couldn't smell Shizu on you? Come on, where is the guy?" He flew around my room a little bit, looking for the lion kwami.

Shizu came up from my bedroom drawer and sighed dejectedly. "Of all the kwamis to give, why him?"  
"Hey… you were one of my favorites too…"

"Well, whatever, Shizu, mane event."

* * *

I was sitting on the windowsill waiting for Kerberos. He flew into my chest and laughed. "He's on his way. Quick!"

"Full moon." I smiled as the fuzz was sucked into my necklace. I ran out in the direction Kerberos came from. I nearly tackled Leo in a hug when I saw him. "I fucked up…"

"Scale of one to ten, how bad?" He asked as he patted my head.

"Eleven… I broke the biggest rule."

He quickly held me at arms length. "You killed somebody?!"

"What?! No! Only in Destiny… No… I told my best friend my secret…"

"Like, this secret or a different one?" He pointed back and forth at our miraculouses.

"This." I pointed at my Miraculous. "I screwed up big time… I knew I shouldn't be a holder."

"No, you're great at this." He told me. "We all slip up from time to time. You remember what happened a few weeks ago, almost everyone's identities were revealed."

"Yeah, and I WILLINGLY told someone."

"Let's start from the beginning." He sat on the building's edge and patted next to him. "What happened?"

"So, I called out of school because this stuff has been bothering me, then my friend came to check on me, Kerberos was hiding then sneezed and my friend heard it. And that's where things went downhill."

"Did the friend go through your stuff to try and find out where the noise came from?"

"I can't remember. Everything just blurred together. I told him I was one of the heroes, then he asked who, then told me I didn't have to then I asked him to guess and Kerberos was impressed he got it and then now I'm here…" She rested her head on my shoulder and sighed. "I love Kerberos. I never want to lose him. I don't love him for the powers at all. I love that he's literally a pocket sized friend. As much as the long nights tire me out, I love being able to talk to him about anything, joke with him, and spoil him like he's my pet."

"Well, best way to keep him would be to keep this between us. I remember that Ladybug had whatever the music box turned into and Cat would blab it to Ladybug if she batted her eyelashes at him."

"Yeah… He's crazy for her."

"So, this friend, is he trustworthy? Is he connected to the Ladyblog in any big ways?"

"He's very trustworthy. I don't think he's connected at all. Doesn't seem like something he'd be interested in."

"Well, as long as it's somebody we know won't tell everyone."

"He won't. He keeps to himself most of the time."

"Do you mind if I know who the friend is? You know, so that we can try to keep him not akumatized together?"

"Devain Fuego."

"Oh, he hasn't been akumatized before. That's probably a good sign."

I chuckled and smiled a bit. "Thanks, Leo."

"Not a problem." He patted my head again. "By the way, nice job with bat boy the other day."

"Thanks!"

"Don't worry about it. You need anything else?"

"I don't think so."

"Alright, if you need me, you know how to get me." He told me with a thumbs up before leaping away.


	10. Chapter 10

The next morning was pretty normal. Woke up, did all the hygiene stuff, and was off to school. It stayed that way for a lot of the day, no villain attack. Which was weird. I was on edge the whole school day. It wasn't until much later in the day that something came up. I saw something on the news of an akumatized person that had a green colonial jacket on with coat tails that ended in bells, lightly glowing wings from their back, a crown of glowing dust on their head, and shoes that had the toes twirl up on the end.

"Well, Hawk Moth is late today." I said with a grin.

"Be careful. This one seems… tricksy." Shizu told me.

"Ah, we've seen tricks before. Mane event." I said unworried and Shizu spiraled into my miraculous as I headed out the window. Soon enough, I found the fairy guy. It wasn't really that hard with his laughing and the shining of his fairy dust against the twilight sky. "I get that sun set is a fun time for fairies, but shouldn't you be at a park or something?" I asked him from the rooftop.

"Oh ho ho!" He turned to look at me. "Finally a champion comes to challenge Oberon. What game should we play, lion of Paris?"

I raised an eyebrow beneath my helmet. "Game?"  
"Oh, yes, silly me, we haven't even been properly introduced yet." He slapped himself on his forehead before flying down. "I am called Oberon. Might I have your name?" He held out his hand.

I pushed his hand aside. "Call me whatever you want, it won't change how this will go." I grabbed him by the front of his shirt.

His face morphed into a crooked smile. "Well then, 'whatever you want,' release me." And I felt my hand forced open.

"What did you do to me?" I asked him as I clenched my fists to summon the lion heads on my hands and pointed them at him.

"Oh, calm down, lion of Paris." He told me. "It's as simple as naming. You gave me a name you go by, and it's given me power over you. Whatever you want, don't tell any of the other heroes how naming works."

"I dislike you." I told him.

"Well, that's very rude. I'm of half a mind to have you jump off this building."

"Good luck with that." I unclenched my fists and the lions on them disappeared.

"Oh? Willingly giving yourself to me so soon?"

"No." I swung my leg up at him and kicked him in the side of the stomach.

"Oooo, now you've gone and done it." He said while holding himself aloft. "Named ones, the lion of Paris has assaulted me. Show him why no one touches the king of fairies." His fairy dust crown glowed brightly and a wave of light washed over the streets. Soon enough, I saw people with wings like his start flying up from the streets towards us.

I brought the lions back to my hands, reading myself for them. "Now would be a great time for anyone else to show up." The first few named ones reached me at the same time, all flailing wildly, which didn't do a lot to me thanks to my armor, but I needed to get them off of me quickly in case they would accidentally get my miraculous. I grabbed one by the front of their shirt and flung them into another before wrapping my arms around a third and suplexing them into the rooftop I was still standing on. I then jammed my fist into the stomach of the fourth with a punch that sent them flying. They were simple to disable, but there were more coming.

"A single predator can only take on so many opponents at once. How long until you've exhausted yourself?" Oberon taunted me, bringing his hand up in front of his laughing mouth, which is how I noticed a butterfly emblem on his glove.

"As long as I need to." I told him with a defiant smile. I continued to fight the continuous horde of people that were coming at me because of his control. There were more than I thought there would be. "Where are you guys?" I mumbled to myself in frustration. No one else had shown up to try and help me against this horde of mind controlled civilians. I put on a brave face before, but I was slowly wearing down.

"Looking for some help?" Ladybug asked as she yo-yoed up next to me.

"Finally. Where have you been?" I asked as I grabbed one of the controlled civilians as they rushed towards me and tossed them to the side.

"What, you think they're only here?"

"Ah, the noble ladybug!" Oberon said excitedly. "The spotted hero of Paris comes to me at last! Named ones! Back away, you have done enough." The winged civilians all flitted away, and I felt my foot take a step back, and try to take a second, but I forced myself to stay where I was.

"Ladybug, you can't-" my voice wouldn't say any more.

"Oh, lion of Paris, did you forget about what I told you?" Oberon chuckled darkly. "There should be no spoilers for the newcomers."

"What did you do to him?!" Ladybug demanded.

"Well, I'll gladly tell you if you're prepared to strike a deal."  
"Don't do it." I warned her.

"Whatever you want, be quiet." I felt my mouth become sealed shut.

"May I have your name?" He asked holding his hand out flat, like he was asking for a payment.

"Uh…" She glanced at me then back to him. "No." She told him, and his mood immediately soured.

"Well then, spotted hero, why not?" He asked as he folded his arms. I was fighting, trying to say something to any of them, but my mouth wasn't loosening.

"I don't make deals with villains." She said before flinging her yo-yo at him to try and wrap him or his wings up in it.

He sighed, disappointed. "That's unfortunate. But still, you've been nicer than your friend here, so you can go."

"Not until I get your akuma." She said, holding onto her yo-yo, and flinging it into the air with a shout of "Lucky charm!" The yo-yo came back down and she caught a t-shirt cannon with a red t-shirt that had black spots.

"Oh, good, you've brought your own linens." He said before he whistled loudly. "Named ones! Let's put on a show for our spotted hero. All against one. All against the lion of Paris."

I stood up and at the ready silently as a massive group of winged citizens flew up to face me. They all hovered around us in a sphere of bodies.

"Are you prepared to offer your name now, spotted hero?"

Ladybug looked to me, then to the t-shirt cannon, then to Oberon. I shook my head, giving her the advice I could without speaking, even as I tried to say anything to help.

"No. You won't have it." She aimed the t-shirt cannon at him and fired the cloth right into his mouth, having it act as a gag before yo-yoing onto him, grabbing his sparkling crown and throwing it to the ground far below, breaking it. I could feel my muscles loosen as I was in control again. A small black butterfly started flying away, but Ladybug caught it in her yo-yo and de-evilized it. She threw the t-shirt cannon into the air and magical ladybugs came out of it, swarming around and putting things back to how they were supposed to be.

"Was traffic bad or something?" I asked her as I breathed heavily with my hands on my hips. It had been a while since I had a drawn out fight like that.

"Sorry, Leonidas. I couldn't get away from the people I was around when this whole thing started."  
"Well, thanks for showing up when you did. No idea how much longer I could go."  
"Thank _you_ for keeping him busy while I was on the way. You're doing good work, I've got to go before I transform back, keep it up."

I gave her a thumbs up before telling her, "You got it."

She returned my thumbs up before zipping away on her yo-yo. I started to help people down from the rooftop where the fighting happened. It didn't take overly long, probably only a half-hour. The last person up there was the guy who used to be Oberon. "Hey, let's sit and talk for a bit." I took a seat on an air conditioning unit. "What's going on?"  
He sat cross-legged on the rooftop in front of me. "Do you ever get the feeling you don't have a say?"  
"Sometimes, is that what you felt like when the akuma showed up?"

He nodded. "I don't make a lot. My boss is pretty stingy, and he's got enough connections to make sure I don't get another job if I quit or raise a fuss."

I nodded. "And that's what led you to wanting control?"  
"Yeah." He looked at the ground in between us.

I hopped off the air conditioning unit and crouched down in front of him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Listen, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I'm just a teenager. I'm not sure what I can do to help you out with this. But the best thing you can do for your mental health and for your future is while you're working where you're working, try and find a place that gives you a scholarship and learn how to do something new. Then, when you have a job lined up for that something new, tell your boss that you've got something else that's come up and you need to quit, it's out of your control."

"What would I do?"  
"What do you like to do?"  
"I like fairy tales and old plays."  
"Then try history, or writing, or mythological research. There are loads of options for you." I patted his shoulder. "Let's get you home, newly hopeful." I told him as he smiled a bit. I took a hold of him and hopped down from where we were, and walked with him on his way home. "Remember, learn how to make what you like make money, and you can get out of your situation. Good luck." I gave him a thumbs up.

"Thanks, Leonidas… I appreciate it." He smiled as he walked into his place.

I let out a satisfied sigh as I started on my way to somewhere else that I could change back without being seen. I ended up getting back into my room without running into anyone. "Shizu, mane blown." Gold light flashed as Shizu came out of the necklace and floated at my side.

"You did well tonight."

"Thanks." I hadn't stopped smiling since the guy went into his house. "I did have one question though, Shizu."

"What is it?"

"How can I resist being controlled?" I asked him as I sat on my bed. "Bat's got me once, Oberon got me, and Hawk Moth got me once."  
"You must strengthen your mind and resolve. You must not let your will be overpowered." He told me.

"How do you suggest I do that?"  
"Be stubborn." He told me.

I sighed at his unhelpful advice. "I'll work on it."


	11. Chapter 11

"Alright, spill it." Alya had me backed against my locker.

"Spill what?" I was confused.

"You're Leonidas aren't you?" She asked me as she held up her phone, showing me her security footage from the train where I fought the bat without my miraculous helping, then swiping and showing me footage of Leonidas fighting the crab villain. Then, she started recording me. "You fought just like him, you have a gold necklace like he does, and you always find someway to disappear when akumas are around."

I was surprised that she had connected the dots. "What? No!" I couldn't keep my surprise or nervousness out of my voice. "He probably just goes to the same karate class I do, gold necklaces like this are pretty common, and I'm kind of hiding so I don't get in the way of the heroes doing their thing." I said my somewhat practiced lines.

"Oh, really? From the videos that I showed you, it doesn't seem like you know a lick of karate, your fight with Feratu was a lot more like boxing, like Leonidas'."

I raised an eyebrow. "Feratu?"  
"The bat miraculous holder!" She said to me, like I was supposed to know what she called everyone.

"Well, I'm not Leonidas."

"Prove it."  
"You remember when that icing villain attacked Mari's parents, I bolted. A hero wouldn't have done that."  
"Unless they were trying to find somewhere private to change into their costume."  
"Didn't he show up a few minutes later? How would I get in his get up that fast?"

"Don't try to pull that card, you and I both know that miraculous heroes don't work like that."

"If I did have a miraculous, what makes you think I'd be Leonidas as opposed to any of the others?"

"Eye color. Yours and Leonidas' match very well. That plus the way you fight, your tone of voice, and how you are never around for the akuma attacks when he is is a lot of evidence supporting my theory."  
"Let's say you're right, and I am Leonidas. What the hell are you going to do with that? You know how important it is for the heroes to keep their identities a secret, so you wouldn't be able to tell anyone even if I did confess to you that I was Leonidas."

"Well, let's say you do tell me that. If I know, but nobody else does, then I can help Ladybug out by letting her know if you ever get Akumatized."

"Or you could use it against me if you ever get akumatized or controlled again in this hypothetical."

"Well, I just won't get akumatized." She said confidently.

I looked at her with a deadpan expression. "It's happened three different times already."

"And now I know how it works, so it won't happened again."

"I'm sure." I said sarcastically.

"Oh, hey, Alya! Hey, Devain!" Cynthia greeted and relaxed against the lockers. "I need to steal Devain for my next design, so sorry to take him so soon!" She grabbed my arm and pulled me away.

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks, she was grilling me pretty hard."

"Trying to figure out who the heroes are?" She sighed.

"Yeah, she's pegged me for Leonidas."

"What? No offence, but has she seen you? Noodle arms, and, you know, a big nerd." She chuckled.

"Yeah, she tried to match our eye colors, and showed me videos of him fighting and me fighting the bat guy."

"That's not a lot to go off of." She still hasn't let go of my arm. "Buy the way your cosplay is almost done. Wanna go to the craft store with me to pick out the finishing touches? Customize it a little bit."

"Oh, sure." I smiled at her a bit.

"Awesome!" She let go of my arm and grabbed two small wheels out of her bag and popped the wheels into the heels of her sneakers. "Catch me if you can!" She ran a bit then zipped down the hall on her heels.

"Cynthia Jessen!" Mr. Damakles yelled at her, "You know that there is no skating in these hallways!"

"Sorry Mr. Damakles! Got a little too excited about my after school plans! Have a nice night sir! Hurry up, Devain!"

I raced after her, trying to get out of the school as quickly as we could.

Cynthia zipped down the path before taking a trip and rolling. "I'm okay!"

I grabbed her arm and helped her up. "You've probably taken worse falls before."

"Many. Marinette and I should have a competition sometime."

"I'm not sure any place would survive that competition." I laughed a little.

"Oh, speaking of Marinette I should call her really quick." Cynthia walked into a store a few feet away as she called Marinette. "Hey! I'm at the craft store. Do you need me to pick anything up?... mhm… Okay! No problem! See you later then. I'll have something awesome to show you then!" She went up and down the many aisles and grabbed various things. "Devain, pick out a bell. I can take the ball out so it's silent if you want, and you can obviously pick the size of it out."

"Hmmm." I looked over the bells that were there and tried to find the closest one to Cat's. It took a bit of searching, but I did find one of the right size.

"Awesome. I'll be right back. I gotta get this fabric and trim cut. Go find a belt buckle you like in the meantime."

I looked down the aisles, looking for one that said belt buckles. This also took a while because the store was not organized very well at all.

"Marco!" Cynthia hollered.

"Polo!" I responded.

Her laughter got louder as she got closer. "Marco!"

"Polo!" How was this store so big?

"Found you! Did you find a buckle?" Her arms were full of fabric and the other odds and ends she grabbed. She did know bags and carts existed, right?

"Where are they, exactly?"

"Three aisles over. After the light section."

"Got it."

When we checked out Cynthia didn't bat an eye at the price. €262! Where did she get that kind of money! Then she pulled out _a lot_ of gift cards. That makes sense now. Oh and now she has coupons. That's good. She only ended up spending €140 then.

"You okay?" She questioned as she grabbed her bags.

"How do you consistently spend this much on this stuff?"

"Gift cards, coupons, and hello fashion designer. I sell some things I make or I do a lot of custom orders over the summer, and breaks. Also Marienette's family lets me work part time at the bakery."

"Ah, that makes sense."

* * *

"How does it feel? Do you like it? Anything you want changed? Not too tight or loose? It will stretch a bit over time and get softer, so tell me now if it's too loose." Cynthia was going crazy over making sure it was perfect.

"It definitely isn't loose."

"Too tight? I can let the seams out a bit."

"You said it'll loosen on its own, let's wait for that and if it's still too tight we'll adjust things."

She gave a sigh of relief and flicked the bell then giggled. "So you like it?"

"Yeah, it's great." I couldn't stop smiling.

"Are you fan boying?" She asked as she grabbed a camera.

"Nah, I just think it's totally paw-some." I did finger guns.

She face palmed with her free hand. "Guess it's never too early to get into character. Do you mind if we go to the park to take some photos?"

"That would be the cat's pajamas."

"Oh my gosh, you're actually getting too into it."

"Well, I am feline pretty excited."

"You're acting worse than him." She went into her cookie jar and grabbed three cookies and put them in her backpack. "Snacks for later, right?"

"I'm sure they won't last that long." I winked.

"I know I like cookies, but come on! I'm not that bad!"

"We both know who I'm talking about."

"Yeah, me."

"Nah, your dog." I joked slightly.

"What dog? I don't have a dog. Chocolate is bad for dogs anyway."

"Kerberos."

"Who?"

"Your kwami, who would HATE TO SEE ANY KIND OF SNACKS MADE BY MARINETTE GO TO WASTE."

"NOOOOOOOO! MY COOKIES!" Kerberous flew out of Cynthia's bag.

"This little guy."

"What? I don't see anything."

"Yes you do, I'm floating right here." Kerberos floated up to her face.

"It was supposed to be a one time thing that never happened because of safety, and I was hoping we could make him forget so I don't lose you."

"Well, if Ladybug never finds out then we're fine." The little kwami smiled.

"Doesn't make me feel any better." It was still strange getting used to her being the new guardian. "Come on, hide so we can take some photos."

It was kind of awkward having her tell me how to be for her pictures. There were a number of times when I wouldn't get a pose just right, so she'd have to adjust me herself and I had to hold the position for a while while she got the 'perfect shot'. And by that I mean she took about 15 photos with each pose. We did one by the statue of Cat and Ladybug too, which was a weird feeling. Why didn't Louvan or I have a statue yet?

"Thanks, Devain. These look amazing!"

"Hey, no problem."  
"Well, I'm glad that the other cat I've been hearing about wasn't Copycat two-point-o." Cat actually showed up.

Cynthia's face got bright red. "Hi, Cat Noir. Cool of you to drop by."

"Well, look what the cat dragged in." I couldn't resist.

"Great… Double the trouble…" Cynthia groaned.

"Well, when I heard the cat was out of the bag, I couldn't resist snooping around."

"It's a good thing the cat didn't get my tongue."  
"You know, this outfit rings a bell," He tapped the bell near my neck, "but I can't quite put my paw on it."

"You must have a claw-ful memory then."  
"What? No, it's paws-itively perfect."

"You've cat to be kitten me right meow if you can't figure it out."

"You two are pun-derful together." Cynthia mumbled.

"What's wrong? You look a little pup-set." I told her.

She opened her mouth and closed it, did it again, then walked away. Aka walked about five feet away and sat on a bench. We continued the string of puns for another twenty minutes. Cynthia took a few photos, and called someone to talk to. I think it was Marinette.

* * *

"Help me…" I groaned. "It's been twenty minutes."

"Oh no. Is it Cat Noir?"

"And Devain. It's a pun war." I flipped the camera around to show her.

"That could go on for hours, you should get one of them out of there."

"But they're having fun, and nothing bad is going on."

"Now that you said something, something bad is going to happen."

"No. I have my lucky charm." I pointed at my necklace. "Never been akumatized!"

"I feel like that has much less to do with it than you think."

"Why, because I'm a sassy bitch all the time?" I laughed. "I'm sorry, that's not funny."

She was stifling a giggle too. "Yeah, that about sums it up, I don't think Hawk Moth would be able to tolerate you."

"You can't tell me what to do Hawk Moth! You're not my dad!"

Marinette started laughing to the point where some tears were coming down her face and I heard her mom in the background ask what happened and after Marinette told her, she started laughing too.

"And the award for annoying Hawk Moth the most that he surrenders goes to me."

Devain glanced over at me. "I'm glad someone is enjoying Paris' two best pundits going back and forth."

"No. I'm talking to Marinette."

"Hello, Marinette, nice for you to see me again." Cat was… being Cat.

I flipped the camera back to me then turned the phone towards Cat. "Your turn to deal with puns."

"What? No need to puss out on us." Devain jokingly chastised me.

"Fine. Then we all videochat her." Both took a seat on either side of me. "Got them to stop the pun wars though. Why don't you meet us at the park?"

"Sure, I'll be there in just a bit." Marinette said before hanging up.

"So, how was the pun war?" I asked the cats.

"Paws-itively claw-some." They said in sync.

"You two think too much alike." I sighed. Marinette to save the day though. Right on time! "Finally someone who doesn't pun every two seconds."

"I thought you might need a little bit of a break from these two."

"I do." I chuckled. "But first." I got off the bench and sat on the ground in front of Devain. "Marinette, sit in front of Cat Noir and let's take a picture."

"Now make sure you keep your paws to yourself." She told Cat, half joking as she sat down next to me.

I used the wide angle mode on my phone and easily got all of us in the photo. "Thanks everyone. And thanks for dropping by and saying 'hi' Cat Noir. I hope we haven't been too much of a distraction for you."

"Not at all, always good to meet some fur real fans."

Devain was of course laughing, and Marinette and I rolled our eyes. "We'll catch you boys around later. We're gonna do girl stuff. Don't cause too much trouble, kitties."

"Purr-haps we will." Devain had to get one last pun in before they left.


	12. Chapter 12

"Hey, Shizu?" I tried to see if my Kwami was still awake.

"Yes, Devain?" Of course he was.

"You think more guardians might come to Paris, ya know, since they came back?"

"That is an interesting question. Why do you ask?"

"Well… with Ladybug being the guardian, we can't know who she is, so we can't visit her for help whenever we need to. I'm just wondering if when I need help if it will be there."

"I'm sure Ladybug will do what is best. She has defended Paris well for someone so young."

"Yeah, that's another reason I'm kind of worried about more guardians coming here."

Shizu cocker his head, a bit confused. "I thought you were wanting more guardians to help guide you."

"Kind of, but I also don't want them to see what's going on and decide to take matters into their own hands. This is our town, we know how to defend it. Fu knew that, that's why he let Ladybug pick the other miraculous holders."

"Ah, yes, that may be a problem. The guardian assigned to me before Master Fu was… strong willed."

"Do you think any are here already?"

"No, we would know. They'd send their own miraculous holders out to try and take the ones that are already here."

A thought entered my brain that I wish hadn't. "Do you think… do you think Feratu is one of their miraculous holders?"

Shizu's eyes widened as he considered the possibility. "It is a possibility, he may be trying to find out what item your miraculous is, since I was not in the guardians' tome."

"What about Cynthia?"

"She is in as much danger as you are, Cat Noir and Ladybug even moreso, those are the most powerful miraculous and the guardians may not stop until they have them."

"We've gotta tell them then." I stood up and flicked my necklace up before saying, "Shizu, mane event," and transforming. I left my room from the window and jumped onto the top of a close building before opening up the top of my gauntlet and calling all three of the other heroes. "Hey, my kwami and I thought of something that might explain where the bat miraculous holder got his mojo from, meet me on top of the Arc de Triomphe in twenty minutes." It would take much less time than that for any one of them to get there, but I didn't want to be rude. I set off for the Arc myself and got there via leaping in about two minutes.

* * *

"Cynthia!" Kerberos whined as I worked on finishing up my pants I ripped the other day.

"Hold on! Then we'll go out and get some air. Just a few more stitches."

"Maybe if your butt wasn't so big you wouldn't rip your pants."  
"Says the one who eats nothing but cookies." After finishing the backstitching on my pants I threw them in my dirty clothes pile. "Fine. Ready to go for a walk? Kerberos, full moon!"

The fluff was sucked into my necklace and I transformed. I checked to see if I had any messages. One from Leo. Guess we were off to the Arc de Triomphe. Where was that again? I'll call Cat.

"Hey, Cat?" I laughed when I called him. "Where's the Arc de Triomphe…?"

"Oh, that's the place where Ladybug boxed a giant spider woman."

"Oh right! Thanks, kitty cat!" I went the wrong way at first. Oops! I slid on the top of it as graceful as ever. "Right on time!" I was not. I was however, the last one there.

"Good, now that everyone is here, pay attention." Leonidas said firmly

* * *

"Master Fu was the only guardian for a long time, and his first reaction to discovering Hawk Moth existed was you two." I pointed at Cat Noir and Ladybug. "So, with that precedent, I don't think it's too far of a stretch to imagine other guardians are either here already or on their way here to take on Hawk Moth, Mayura, and maybe even us. They might even give out miraculous to their chosen holders to take our miraculous."

"You think that Feratu is with another guardian?" Ladybug understood what I was getting at.

"Shizu said that it was possible, so we should watch out for miraculous holders that use miraculous we haven't seen before."

"Ladybug, how many miraculous are in the miracle box?" Cat asked her.

"There was ours," she point at Cat and herself, "the five around them, and then the twelve for the zodiac, so nineteen."

"Well, if we ever find out about another guardian trying to take our miraculous, we've got some numbers on our side." He tried to be reassuring.

"Well, this is all incredibly interesting, but I'm not really in the mood to confirm or deny your theories." I spun around and saw the bat hovering there above us.

Louvan said nothing and wailed him in the face with a punch. He grabbed her arm before spinning in the air to build up momentum and flung her downwards toward the ground. "Now then, with the emotionally volatile one down there, what's to say we have a civilized chat?"

I looked over at Cat. "Chat, be civil." I told him before a stepped forward to get closer to Feratu. "What's your angle here?" I asked him as I made the lions appear on my hands.

"Angle? No angle, just doing a quick check up on the so called 'heroes of Paris,' and I've gotta say that I am not impressed. One use of my power and you'd be ripe for akumatizing."

"One use of mine could knock you out of the air, what's your point?"

"Oo, feeling a bit spicy today, are we?" He teased. "Don't worry, you're not on the hit list today, the last few times were to see how you measure up, and the answer was 'quite well'."

"Are you sure it was us doing well? Or are you just trash? You could barely beat a kid on a train." I took my turn taunting him.

He looked genuinely offended. "I was able to hold off," he moved to the side to get out of the way of Louvan leaping at him from the ground, "her until you arrived, and got the both of you akumatized."

Louvan landed next to me, still laser focused on him. I put a hand on her shoulder and gripped it firmly. "We'll be ready for you whenever you do have us on that hit list."

"Oh, I'm sure." He said sarcastically before jetting off.

"Cat, you're the sneakiest one that won't jump at him. Follow him and see where he goes." I was starting to sound like Shizu giving orders

"What? Why?"

"We'll be able to find out if he's returning to a guardian, now go."

He nodded before leaping off and using his stick to launch himself.

"Louvan, are you…" Ladybug didn't know how to end the question.

"I'm fine." She sighed as she played with her necklace and sat down.

I let the brave face drop as I kneeled on one knee next to her. "I know he's messed with our heads, and he will get his comeuppance for that, but we need to know if he's working alone or with a guardian."

"He's smart, and manipulative. What if he uses that against Cat?"

"What if he used it against you?" I put a hand on her shoulder. "You and Cat can both handle yourselves, but I wanted Cat to go because he's much cooler under pressure."

"I know." She clearly wanted to get the attention off of her.

I looked over to Ladybug. "You've been at this longer than us, how long until we should head after him?"  
"I'll give him about five minutes." Ladybug opened her yo-yo and set a timer.

"C-can my knife do that too?" Louvan asked.

"All miraculous tools can." I held up my gauntlet and the top of it opened up to show the techy stuff inside.

"WHAAAAAAT?! I just know how to use the phone!"

"They're basically smartphones." Ladybug said.

Louvan was fiddling around with her knife now. "Kerberos, why didn't you tell me these things instead of eating all of the cookies?" She mumbled.

"... Is that who Tikki has been complaining about eating all of her snacks?" Ladybug asked.

"I am so sorry. I've been trying to make him deliver some to her, but he eats them all before he gets there, and then he's on a sugar high till five in the morning."

"Maybe don't send him to do that anymore." I chuckled a bit. "At least, don't send him on his own."

"But I can't go follow him to Ladybug's. Then I'll know who she is."

"He's found my place pretty quickly before." I reminded her.

"Oh yeah… That could work. Do you think Shizu would mind?"

"Oh, definitely, and that's what would make it fun." I joked with her.

"Oh boy… Sleep with some earbuds tonight Ladybug." I warned.

She giggled. "Don't worry, I'm usually a heavy sleeper." And that's when her timer went off.

"That's our cue." I got up and started after Cat who was after the bat.

Ladybug's yo-yo rang and when she picked it up, it sounded like a very unhappy cat. "We'll be right there." She told him before hanging up. "I knew this day was getting too good to be true, Hawk Moth akumatized someone downtown. Cat's keeping them occupied, but we should hurry."

"Heard loud and clear." I picked up the pace and once I was close enough to hear the smashing, I just followed that. I saw Cat dipping and dodging around a villain with spring shoes and boxing gloves in a pair of tan fighting shorts with a matching head guard. I purposefully landed hard to get his attention.

He turned and launched a fist attached to a spring at me. "Stay out of this! Only one opponent at a time!" I moved my head to the side, avoiding the strike. When the fist came back to him, he punched the ground and a boxing ring with a cage around it formed, trapping Cat and him inside it.

"Well, this is…" A smirk found its way onto my face, "a good meal." I clenched my fists and a pair of lion heads formed on them, ready to take in the metal. I shoved my fists forward, ready for them to eat through the cage when… nothing happened. "...Shit."

"I got this!" Louvan jumped up at the cage with her knife in both hands. She hung at the top of the cage before cutting through it like butter. "Tadaaaaa!"

"Cat, tag out." I hopped up and slid in under the ropes around the ring. "Get ready to catch him."

The spring man waited, hopping back and forth between his feet with his fists up and ready as Cat looked between us unsure before getting out of the ring.

"Are you going to fight back?" He asked, sizing me up.

"Oh, I'll do more than that." I brought my fists up. He scowled and launched a fist at me, I ducked to the side and grabbed the spring his fist was attached to, yanking him towards me before swinging with my other hand. He caught the punch in his free hand and used the momentum from the pulling to slam himself into me, making me lose my grip on the spring and moving back slightly. He kept moving forward, keeping his arms compressed, slamming his fists into my torso before I let off a sucker punch to the side of his face, making him back off. He tried to fling another punch in a feint before coming at me from the opposite side, and it would've worked, if not for his reflection that I glanced in my armor. I responded by ducking way further down, and giving him a devastating uppercut to his chin. He staggered backwards, but I didn't pursue him. I'll make him play my game, I won't play his. "What's got you so riled up?"

"You wouldn't understand, _hero_." There was disdain in that last word. "You barely try and you get all the admiration you could ever want, but I work without end," he flung another punch towards me, "and get **nothing**."

I batted his blow aside. Good. He was angry. He'll get sloppy. "Seems you haven't put the effort into the hours." I stepped forward before the spring came back and hit him in the side, then hooked my foot around his heel and swept his feet from under him. In the split second before he could hit the floor, I put all of my strength into a vertical punch to knock him high into the air. "Cat!" I made sure he noticed, and Cat leapt up, tangling the villain's arms up with his staff.

Ladybug grabbed one of the boxing gloves and Cat grabbed the other before ripping them. Ladybug's had the akuma come out, and she did her thing. The boxing ring vanished and so did the villain's altered state.

"Nice job, guys." Louvan shyly smiled through her mask. You could really only see her cheeks move and her eyes squint a little.

"Couldn't have done it without your assist." I gave her a thumbs up. Metal tends to be less expressive than fabric. "Thanks."

Louvan climbed up on a slightly higher platform. "No sign of the bat though."

"Yeah, sorry about that." Cat rubbed the back of his head. "This akuma just popped up before I could find out where he goes."

"We'll figure that out later." I helped the former villain up. "You guys go back to whatever you were doing. I'll get punch-out here back to his place safe and sound."

Cat and Ladybug quickly left, but Louvan stayed where she was watching over everything.

"I'll be back." I told her as I started to walk the guy home.

It wasn't far. Turned out that he lived above a gym, and he had only found out that somebody had robbed the place after it happened. I told him that I'd put out a call to help him out, and he seemed to appreciate it. It wasn't long before I was back where I left Louvan.

"Hey." She said when she heard me return.

"How's it going?" I sat next to her perch.

"Okay. You?"

"I'm doing pretty good. Anything on your mind?"

"Not really. Just, you know, drouble life stuff." She chuckled. "And I've been wanting to ask Ladybug how she's doing with the guardian stuff and all now, but I don't wanna bug her. Pun not intended."

I chuckled a little bit. "Could always call just to talk. Not everything needs to be an important event like I tried to make this."

"That was important though." Louvan messed with her knife before calling Ladybug. "Hey, I know you're busy and all, but just wanted to see how you are doing with being a new guardian and such. Didn't wanna bug ya while you were here. Catch you later."

"Was that so hard?" I teased a little.

"I don't like bugging everyone."

"You know we'd all drop what we were doing to help you out if we needed it."

"I know. That's what a team does."

"Then let's stop with the worrying about bugging people. We need each other like…" I grinned as I looked up at her, "Like a wolf needs its pack."

She chuckled and rolled her eyes before pulling down her face mask and taking a deep breath of air.

"You might want to keep that up while we're out. No telling who might recognize your face." I kept my eyes down despite knowing who was under the mask.

"I-it's okay. It's actually always down when I transform. Don't understand why I don't have any kind of actual mask."

"The miraculous take bits from what they are and what we want to be. Figuring that out might help you with finding out why yours is different."

"I hate riddles."

I shrugged. "Think of it like a science experiment."

"I'm failing science!"

"You at least know how to do an experiment, right?"

"Yeah. Sorta…"

"Good. You're halfway there then. You just need to find someone else to see what changes."

"How am I supposed to do that? I can't bug you guys to figure something stupid like this out."

"What about that kid who found out who you were in civilian life? What was his name? David or something?"

"Devain." She sighed. She really didn't seem to like that idea.

"Any reason that he wouldn't work?"

"I still feel like it was a mistake telling him, and as much as I trust him I'd kinda feel better if he forgot. It makes me anxious, and I don't wanna be bothering him with hero stuff. I should be protecting him, not asking for help with my problems."

"We all need help sometimes. I wouldn't have been able to get in there to beat the villain without you cutting the cage open."

"I don't want to be helped though!" She seemed annoyed with herself. "I just want to help others. I don't want the attention on me. Doing hero stuff is the only time I can kinda do that, but here I am still bothering you mostly because I still struggle with this double life."

"None of our get togethers have been a bother for me. I get the wanting to be able to do everything you want on your own, but we just can't a lot of the time. I get the wanting to stay on the down low. I get it. But with how people are, how _we _are, we need to be beacons for them. Shining lights that show them the world isn't all bad feelings and monsters, but that there are people they can depend on. Just like we depend on each other."

"Sorry. You're right." She rested her head on my shoulder and hummed a random song to herself. "Thank you."

* * *

It was another boring day at school for the most part. I was still failing science, and Devain offered to tutor. Math was… math. The only classes I really cared about were my history, art, and design classes. In gym I nailed Lila in the face with a dodgeball. She used that as an excuse to sit out for the rest of the class because of some unpronounceable medical jargon that she probably just made up. I had no sympathy for her. I hate people who bs their way through life. I really wanted to be a smart ass and suggest to her that she should go get her medical history from her doctor to give to the school so she can avoid stuff like this in the future.

I noticed that somehow Devain was dodging loads of balls that were getting thrown at him. Really quickly… and… I thought about how Cat was dodging the punching from the spring boxer yesterday. No way, that couldn't be right. Those two can't be… can they? No, definitely not. Unless… did he ever wear a ring? I needed to check that when we had a moment to ourselves, I couldn't see his hand clearly from here.

I got that moment a lot sooner than I was planning, as the school's alarm bells started ringing and Mr. Damokles warned everyone over the loudspeaker about a villain being spotted in the school. I saw something change in Devain's face as he looked around the gym. He found what he was looking for when he looked at me and started to run in my direction. "You've got a job to do." He told me as he grabbed my hand and pulled me along. No ring on that hand, I would've felt it. I looked at his other hand as we ran and I didn't see any ring on it. He dragged me into a broom closet before letting go of my hand, panting there for a bit.

"Devain, you gotta get outta here." I whispered as Kerberos flew out of my shorts pocket.

"I will when you're out there, do your thing." He told me.

"Kerberos, full moon." I transformed and poked my head through the door. "Come on. You sneak out the emergency exit, and I'll do my thing."

"You got it." He moved quickly and quietly through the halls. If he wasn't Cat, I have no clue who was.

I was quietly on the hunt for the villain. No sign of the other heroes. "Hello?" I called out thinking the villain might hear me.

A little white marshmallow looking thing wandered up to me and started punching my shins. It didn't really hurt, it was more like getting poked repeatedly by a cotton ball.

"Hey, little guy." I said as I sat on the floor with it. "What's wrong? What happened?"

It started to climb up my clothes to get to my face and started whacking me on my cheek.

"Hey. Talk to me, please? You're obviously someone who goes here or works here. What's up? If you can't speak maybe you can write it down? Or maybe you can show me?"

He screamed at me in a voice that sounded like a mix between a rabbid and a minion before he resumed hitting my face.

"Hey, no!" I grabbed the arms and held them down for a moment. "Stop before you get roasted."

It blew a raspberry at me and started kicking my hands.

I sighed. "Can you work with me for a second please? I want to help you, but violence isn't always the answer. Are you a student?"

It was trying to bite me now. It felt like a giant goldfish was trying to eat me. Just less slimy.

"Come on." I stood up and picked the marshmallow up. "Let's see if Ladybug, or cat squared got here."

It was trying to wiggle out of my grasp the whole time, screaming.

"You're acting like a child." I grumbled. "Ladybug? Cat squared? Anyone here?"

It did eventually manage to slip out and started to waddle quickly off. It had a demonic child laugh as it ran off.

"Hey! Get back here!... Wait… show me where you want to go." I followed closely behind the marshmallow

It wandered over to a classroom's door, and started to try to squish itself between it and the floor.

The classroom was empty, so I opened the door. "Nothing is in here, buddy."

It let out a frustrated gurgling noise before jumping out the window.

"Oh fuck!" I jumped out the window and grabbed the marshmallow. I called Ladybug as soon as we hit the ground. "Heyyyy… soooo. I have the villain. It's a marshmallow. Where are you? I'm outside of the school holding it." It started biting between my index finger and my thumb.

"What? Where? Do you know where the akuma is?"

"No. It's just a marshmallow that's like the size of a hand. Quit biting me! You have no teeth!"

It screamed at me again.

"Can you hurry please? I don't babysit well…"

"Where outside of the school are you?" It was trying to wiggle out of my hands again.

I pulled down my mask and put the marshmallow inside like a baby carrier. It was a really tight squeeze. "The front of the school."

"I'll be right there." The little marshmallow was climbing up my neck and trying to force its arm into my mouth. By punching it.

"Stop it!" I pushed the marshmallow back down.

It jumped from my neck and onto the ground, tring to waddle off again.

"Nope!" I grabbed it again. It screamed at me again before trying to wiggle out for the third time.

Ladybug swung down and looked at the villain with a confused look on her face. "Are you sure that's it?"

"Yeah. It screams and when it punches you it feels like you're getting poked with a cotton ball."

"That's… weird. Why is it so small?" Ladybug tried to poke it, but it bit onto her finger.

"Hey! No! We don't bite!" I shook my finger at it and hit where its nose would be.

It doubled in size and its body got a lot more defined as it laughed and made me lose my grip before running off like a toddler on a sugar high.

"Hey! Get back here!" Ladybug threw her yo-yo to try and wrap it up, but the string got a bit too tight and cut the thing in half, leading to two of the villains.

"Doh!" I face palmed. "I'm on it! Call cat squared and let them know what's going on."

"Cat squared? Is that how we're referring to those two from now on?" She was slightly amused before calling them and telling them the situation.

I had a marshmallow in both arms held tightly together. They weren't getting out that easily. Unfortunately, their hits were starting to feel like meaty baby hands as opposed to fluff. But, you know, if those hands were going at 25 miles per hour.

"So, what's with Romulus and Remus there?" Leonidas asked as he arrived.

I actually laughed at that one. "Alright, you get bonus points for that."

"Any clue to where the akuma might be?" He asked us.

Ladybug shook her head. "No idea. It isn't inside the villain, or else we would've gotten it when it split in half."

"What if it's _on_ him. They're marshmallows. What happens when you get them near heat?"

"They caramelize." Was apparently Ladybug's first thought.

"Then they melt." I sighed. "What if we melt the marshmallow off?"

"Oo, are we going to have some s'mores?" Cat was finally here.

"Depends on if you're a good kitty or not today." Leonidas told him as the lion's head formed on his gauntlets. "How are we going to do this so that you don't get burned too?"

I looked at Ladybug. "Lucky charm?"

"Worth a shot." Ladybug said before using her power. A red tarp with black spots fell back down into her hands. She looked around like she always did and I saw a plan starting to form in her head. "Cat Noir, here, hold these two corners." She gave him two of the tarp's corners and she held the other two farther away so that it could be a makeshift pouch for the two marshmallow thingies. "Louvan, throw them in- NOT NOW!" She yelled when she saw me winding up. "When I say, and Leonidas, you light them up when they land."

Leo nodded and pointed his lion gauntlets at the tarp, ready to fire.

"Alright, three, two, one, throw!" Ladybug yelled, which I took as my cue to toss them and almost the same time as them landing, Leo let off his transmuter's roar and… well, let's just say that they did get roasted in the end.

Ladybug got the akuma and restored all to how it was with her lucky charm. The akumatized victim was the janitor of the school, and he sat up from lying on his side, looking around confused. "Oh no, where am I now?"  
"No need to worry, bud." Leo helped him get to his feet. "You're just outside the school. You might want to get back in there before you're missed."


	13. Chapter 13

"So, let me get this straight," Alya was talking to me about her hero theories now, "you want me to believe that after you and Devain ran off, you just hid in the broom closet the whole time while a villain was doing who knows what who knows where and you just stayed there the whole time?"

"Well we might have been doing other stuff too." I winked. Had to try and throw her off somehow.

She wasn't having it, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, sure, next you're going to tell me you jumped out a window and met Ladybug in person." She was being very sarcastic.

"No, but damn that would be cool!"

She sighed in frustration. "This is just like Devain and his 'karate class'."

"Oh yeah. He does okay in class." I shrugged. Don't know what the hell she was talking about, but just go with it I guess."

"Don't you start covering for him, I know he made it up. What he did to try and fight Feratu is way different from any karate that I could find online."

Mental note. "Huh… is that what his name is?"

"It's what I call him, and the Ladyblog is popular enough that it stuck. Not the point. Do you really expect me to believe you just sat in a closet for the time it took to get the akuma?"

"No, I had a panic attack. I'm still not used to this shit. Kinda miss the states now. Ooo a good cheesesteak…"

"Why would you put cheese on a steak?" Alya was confused.

"Alright! So, ya grab an Italian roll, take some finely cut up steak and put it in the roll. Then this is where you get fancy. You can put sauce, onions, or peppers on it or none at all, and finally you get some melted cheese and put that on top."

"Sounds… interesting." Alya said.

"It's so good! I'll call you when I know we're having it one night if you wanna try it."

"No, no, that's fine. You go and do whatever it is you said you were doing with Devain in the closet."

"What did we do in the closet?" Jesus fucking christ, how does Devain walk so quietly?

"Deal with my panic attacks." I chuckled.

"Yeah, that was only extremely not fun."

"Weird how you two always end up missing for most of the akuma attacks."

"Good at hiding?" I shrugged.

"And how not all of the heroes show up if you're around."

I rolled my eyes. "Don't know what to tell ya, girly."

"You could tell me which heroes you guys are." She begged.

"I'm no hero." Devain said flatly.

"Do you see how easily I get distracted? Like in math… shit, what's the homework?" I threw my bag on the floor to look for my notebook. "Of course…" I didn't write it down… "Devain~ what was the homework?"

"The first seven problems on page 186." He told me. "Do you want to work on them together, in case you need help?"

"Always." I smiled.

Alya rolled her eyes before leaving, commenting, "You guys have fun, I'm not going to get anything from you."

I sighed and picked up my bag. "I thought that would never end."

"Is she trying to say that you're a hero now too?"

"Yeah… do you want to go to my house or the library or your place?"

"Let's do the library." He said as he grabbed his stuff.

It was nice and quiet in the library, and surprisingly no one was here. I work on my math alone and asked Devain some questions here and there. Other than that it was fine. Nothing too crazy. I'm good at just plugging in numbers into an equation but give me a word problem and I'm screwed. I went into my bag and grabbed some cookies and a Kerberos on one of them.

"Hey." I scolded. "These ones are mine. Did you eat all of yours?"

"Yeah, you only gave me fifteen."

"Oh, only, my bad." I chuckled. "You're taking some to Tikki tonight." I whispered.

"Yay, I get to see some friendies!"

"Do not eat her treats or the cookies I will give you, got it? Leo is making Shizu go with."

"Awwwwwww, he's no fun." The little wolfy whined.

"That's the point. He won't let you eat the cookies."

"But I liiiiike cookies."

"But you took her treats. How would you feel is she always ate all of yours?"

"I'd be sad, but understand."

"Liar. You'd freak out once we got home." I thunked my head on the table. "Go take a nap or something. I'm almost done my homework."

"Okay." He zipped back to the bottom of my bag and started snoozing.

"Thanks for the help today Devain. I really owe you."

"Nah, don't worry about it." He told me. "It's nice having someone around to do this stuff with."

After finishing my work I grabbed my bag and Kerberos flew into my jacket pocket. "Thanks again. I gotta get baking so someone can drop treats off."

"You sure he won't eat them all on the way?" Devain asked jokingly.

"He will try and he will try to eat them right out of the oven."

"And you're hoping he can get the pastries there unscathed?"

"That's why Shizu is going with him. See you later!"

* * *

"I still can't believe you volunteered me for this." Shizu wasn't pleased with me.

"She needed someone to help, and I can't do it, or else I'd risk exposing both her and my secret identities."

"Could you not have suggested another kwami? Surely there are others that could do more to help."

"I can't speak for the other kwamis." I chuckled.

"But you can speak for me?" He asked with his hands on his hips.

"When I'm Leonidas, yeah." I grinned. "You'll get some jerky when you get back."

"I'm not bribed as easily as the other kwamis."  
"Two bags of it."  
"...Fine."

* * *

"These won't be too heavy for you guys right?" I asked, holding up four small party favor bags, two for each of them to carry.

Kerberos grabbed two bags and flew around the room for a bit. "Should be fine. Can I just have one?"  
"No. You can have a cookie when you get home. Are you sure they're okay? I can go about half way with you two and turn my back so I don't know where you guys take them if you think they'll be too heavy."

"No, no. It's okay. Shizu and I can do it." He sighed and put the bags on my desk before sitting on my head.

"Are you okay?"  
"I miss my friends."

"I'm sorry. Maybe if Ladybug is up she'll let you see them if you ask nicely."

He shrugged as we waited for Shizu. "Plagg won't be there though."  
"Plagg? Is that Chat noir's kwami?"

"Mmhm. He may be a cat, but we're both a fun crazy mix. I'm surprised you and Cat Noir don't get along more because of it."

"Really?"  
I heard a tapping on my window and saw a gold colored creature with a frill around its head and a tail reaching off of it. I guess this was Shizu.

I opened the window and smiled. "Hello. You must be Shizu, right?"

"Correct. I am here to escort Kerberos."

"Awesome. Thank you! What is your favorite snack? I might have something to give you as a thank you then."

"I am a particular fan of spiced meats."

"Is jalepeño beef jerky okay?"

"That is excellent." He nodded with a smile.

"I'll be right back." I ran down to the kitchen and found my Mom's boyfriend's jerky stash. I grabbed a daily large piece and ran back upstairs. "Here you go. It's the least I can do."

"You are too kind." He graciously accepted the treat.

"Kerberos, you behave now, understand? Shizu can do whatever he needs to, to keep you in line."

Kerberos groaned loudly, flopping onto the floor.

"You're such a drama king…" I mumbled and poked him with my foot.

"Obviously." He said like I should've figured that out by now.

"Shall we go so that you can repay your debts now?" Shizu asked, picking up Kerberos by the foot.

"Ugh, fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine." He whined.

"And apologize to Tikki while you're at it."

* * *

I tapped on the window and huffed. "Tikkiiiiiiiiiiiiii! Waaake uuuuuup!"

Shizu was keeping an eye on me the whole time. It was so weird having so many cookies and _not _being able to eat them.

"Tiiiikkiiiiiii! Why are you in charge anyway wannabe? You're younger than me."

"Age doesn't always make one responsible. Wayzz is much more disciplined than Plagg."

"Hehe, Atlantis."

"Millions of people drowned."

The window finally opened and Tikki greeted us happily. "Oh, hi, guys. What are you doing here?"

"Cyn- Louvan, made me bring cookies and macaroons for all the times I took yours. I am sorry." Why did I have to apologize? They were yummy, and I brought her treats to replace them.

"Oh, it's-"

"And…?" Shizu looked at me expecting more.

"Aaaaand… OH! I won't take any again unless you say I can."

"Good." Shizu patted my head, patronizing me.

I set the treats on the desk and licked my lips. No! Cynthia would be so mad at me! Then we'd have to do this again. "Well, enjoy!" I hugged Tikki tightly. "I MISS YOUUUU! I miss all my friends!"

"Tikki, what's that noise?" Marinette started to sit up in her bed, rubbing her eyes.

"EEP! Sorry, Marinette!" Man I was saying sorry a lot tonight.

"Oh, uh, no worries." She wasn't completely awake yet.

"We'll be going then, please go back to sleep." Shizu told her.

"Oh, okay." She flopped back down.

"Good night, Marinette. Night, Sugarcube."

"Night, fluffy." She gave me a big hug before we left.

* * *

I only knew Shizu was back when he dropped onto my forehead, tired from all the flying he had just did. "Next time, Leonidas is escorting him."  
"What, and find out her identity? I thought we had rules for a reason."

"You and Louvan broke that rule."

"Yeah, and you're not going to tell her."  
"I know. I will keep my mouth closed for now because of her taste in dried meats."

"I'm guessing she gave you something spicy then." I grinned as I set him on the pillow I put next to my bed.

"Yes, and I enjoyed it greatly." He said as he fell asleep.

* * *

The next day did not go well. An akumatized villain appeared early in the morning and it was one that was beaten with the use of a miraculous that we didn't have a holder for. Specifically, Anansi. Ladybug tried to scheme up a plan like usual while the rest of us tried to keep her busy. I was given the unenviable role as main tank, meaning I had to take most of the punches. Louvan and Cat were running interference when they could, but we couldn't seem to get through her. When it looked like we were about to get a handle on the situation, Anansi would stick one of us with webs from her mouth, forcing one of us to try and take her on solo as someone helped the stuck person out of the web. I eventually figured out what needed to happen.

"Ladybug, go get the turtle miraculous. Louvan, cover her. Cat, we're doing a tag team." I laid out the simple plan as I stood in front of Anansi.

Ladybug looked between us and Louvan, not really sure before nodding, "Alright."

"Only if you're comfortable." Louvan held onto her knife tightly as she carefully watched everything around her. "I can use my Shadow Veil to cover wherever you need it."

"You're not getting away that easy!" Anansi yelled, charging for them, but Cat and I leaped into the way to keep her from getting further.

"Just hurry up!" I screamed at them.

"Come on." Ladybug wrapped an arm around Louvan's waist and yo-yoed them away.

"You two kitties look like you need your claws clipped. Let me break them off for you!" Anansi grabbed Cat by his collar and me by my wrist guards and slammed us both into the ground before flinging us apart.

I pushed myself up, just in time to see her grab Cat's wrist to stop his hand, which had black energy flowing around it, and sticking it to the wall. She quickly stuck his other hand to the same wall to immobilize him and I was on my own. Great.

"Come on then." I held my fists up. "Show me what you've got."

She obliged, quickly closing the considerable distance between us, slamming blow after blow into me so that I had no option but to just keep my arms up. I eventually had an idea and let myself get sent flying backwards towards a line of street lights. I held my gauntlets in front me so they could consume some metal before I put them to use. I slid to a low stance and pointed my gauntlets at the already rushing Anansi. "Transmuter's Roar." I said and they blasted her, making her shield her eyes, giving me just the opening I needed to get in a few punches of my own. Until she caught one of my fists.

"That was a pretty neat trick, flyweight." She said, pushing my fist down, forcing me to kneel. "Too bad it won't work twice." She brought her knee up into my face, knocking my head back and up. She leapt up after me and punched me down into the ground, leaving a crater where I landed.

I put a fist on the ground to try and get myself up with a staggered breath. "It doesn't need to." I looked up on one knee at her. "Ladybug's getting the same miraculous that helped beat you last time, I just need to last until they get back."

"That'll be a tough task." She pulled her fists back and punched me across the face with all three of her right fists. My head snapped to the side as I heard metal snapping and bouncing across the ground.

I looked over to see my helmet on the ground about 20 feet away. "Try me." I told her. She growled and swung again, this time I brought my arm up to stop the triple force punch, but it still made me slide several feet from her. I shakily stood up, fists at the ready.


	14. Chapter 14

Ladybug and I were quickly running back to the cats. I saw the shine of metal bounce about 20 feet away from Leo.

"No…" I separated from Ladybug and grabbed the helmet off the ground. I rushed to find Leo and give it back to him. Did he even have a mask on under this? I saw him standing in front of Anansi with his brown hair exposed to the elements. I couldn't see his face yet because of the giant woman between us who had turned to look at Ladybug and me.  
"Well, look who came back for another round." She punched her palms together and cracked her neck.

"You better be ready, because this is going to be a total knockout." Ladybug said before unifying the turtle and ladybug powers. "Louvan, you get Leo out of here before any more people see his face. I'll talk to him later, for now, just move." She told me before leading Anansi away with jabs at her pride and abilities as a boxer.

Leonidas tried to follow, but fell to his knees again, his head down, and his hair falling in front of his face.

I grabbed onto Leo, and took him to a hiding spot. It was one I used a lot actually. "Leo?" I said quietly and held out his mask.

"I can still help." He put a hand onto his helmet, using it to try and get up, but falling back down. That's when I finally saw who was my nearly invincible friend.

"Devain?" I mumbled under my breath and sat with him. My hands hesitantly reached out to him before pulling him into a hug.

"I'll explain later." He told me. "I need to help them." He tried to get out of the hug to go to Cat and Ladybug.

"Leo, take a second! Please…"

"We don't have the time. Cat used his cataclysm before you guys got back, we need to get him out of the webs Anansi put on him." He was still trying to leave, but he was so beat up that he couldn't manage it.

"Right." I mumbled and let him go as a beep came from my miraculous. "I'll be there in a moment."

He staggered off in the direction of where the fight had happened, still holding onto his helmet in his hand.

"Your helmet." I reminded him as I transformed back.

"They've already seen me." He responded.

Kerberos was looking at me like he expected some kind of reaction. "Well…?" He gestured towards Leo.

"Well what?" I mumbled and handed the kwami a half of a cookie.

"This change how think about him at all?" He asked after the less than half a second it took him to eat the cookie.

I then handed him the other half. "I… don't know."

"Gotta tell ya, he doesn't seem to go down easy. Boy's more hurt than a deer bit in the butt." He finished the cookie while talking.

"We gotta get back there. Kerberos, full moon!"

By the time I got back the Akuma was already freed and Ladybug was catching it. Leo didn't look too hot. At least he put the helmet back on.

He was leaning against the wall with Cat, probably realizing that the lucky charm was going to get Cat out anyway. And once the akuma was caught and Ladybug dismissed the charm, it did. Ladybug was walking over to the two of them before Leo held up a hand, asking her silently to stop. She was about 10 steps away from them when she did. "Leo, we have to-"  
"We will. We will… Later. I've got some more important talking to do right now."

Cat's ring started to beep and he looked kind of panicked for ruining the mood. "I've gotta split, if the cat could get your tongue until I get back, that'd be great." He poled away.

"You have 20 minutes." Ladybug told Leo.

He nodded before also leaving. My knife lit up with a call from him shortly after.

I jumped down the side of the building and answered. "Leo, whatcha need?" I just wanted to help him, and hug him. I was really worried about this. What was going to happen? It's not our faults our mask can move and come off!

"I feel like I need to explain a lot to you."

"You don't have to explain anything unless you don't want to. Do you want me to meet you somewhere?"

"Yeah, but after the talk with Ladybug. I'm not sure how long that's going to take, or how long it might go, but I'd really prefer to have you there in case things get… loud."

"Always, partner."

"Thanks. I appreciate it." He told me before hanging up.

* * *

I stood in front of Ladybug in my armor, looking her in the eye.

"Hawkmoth knows who you are. He could threaten your family."

"No, he can't. My family's not in Paris."

"Your friends, he might try to bring you onto his side like he did with Chloe."

"My friends can handle themselves, and, unlike Chloe, I know the difference between right and wrong."

"He'll use Feratu to target you more."  
"And if I have my miraculous, I'll be more ready for him than ever. You guys beat Duskmane before, you can do it again. And I've been working on having complete control over my emotions so that Feratu can't manipulate them easily."  
"You need to hand over your miraculous." She held out her hand.

"I don't need to do anything. Hawkmoth has a face. That's all. If he doesn't know me, he probably doesn't have the means to find out who I am."

"We can't take the risk that he does. I'm sorry, you're a good hero, but I can't allow you or anyone else suffer because of your identity being revealed."

"Give me a week to get Feratu. I do that, a lot of Hawkmoth's power over us is gone, and he'll have to rely on random bad feelings again."

She thought for a long time. You could almost cut the air with how tense the wait for an answer was. "You have four days."

"Doable." I nodded.

"If you don't have him by then, your miraculous has to be given to me."

"Understood." I didn't take my eyes off of hers.

She yo-yoed away and I let out a sigh before sitting on a building ledge. "You think I can do it even with no leads?"

"I think we can do it miraculously." Louvan smiled and pointed finger guns at me.

I chuckled a bit at that. "Thanks. Any place you can think of that we should sniff out first?"

"Go see if we can see anything in the museum?"

"Better than nothing." I thought outloud. "Can I ask you something?"

"Always."

"Do you think I'm cut out for this?"

"Much more than I am. This almost looks like second nature for you." Louvan sat next to me and put her arm about me.

"I wish I could say that the bravado I have in this was real." I closed my gauntleted hands. "Today, when I first met Feratu, and when we fought the shrimp villain. I got hurt. I'm not going in because I think I can win everytime, I go because it's what I can do. And I'm terrified of the time when I can't win and I can't… do it anymore." My hands were shaking, even as I clenched them.

Louvan gently grabbed one of my hands and held onto it. "We can do this. Together, partners in crime. Always stronger with someone you trust by your side, and I trust you. Do you trust me?"

I put a hand over hers. "Yeah." I smiled under my helmet. I was lucky to have her around.

"Then to the museum!"

* * *

We were searching around for a long while, trying to find something even tangentially related to ours or the bat's miraculous, but things weren't exactly going great. Turns out it's a lot easier to find something when people don't keep it a secret for centuries, who would've guessed?

"I'm going to go see if they still have the Greek stuff up. You try to see if they have any Aztec exhibits around somewhere." I told Cynthia before walking towards the Greek exhibits again, searching for a clue.

"You should have let Ladybug take the miraculous."  
"Shizu, now is _not _the time."  
"When will be the time then? When you don't find Feratu?"  
"I will find him."  
"Cat noir couldn't even keep pace with him, how can you expect to find him without any information about him?"  
"Because I'm smarter than Cat."

"Are you? Because what you've done today proves otherwise. Cat would've had the sense to hand his miraculous over, even if it would've been hard for his kwami."  
I raised an eyebrow and looked into my pocket. "You'd have a hard time too?"  
"That's not what I said." He looked away.

I gave a sort of soft, sad smile and patted his head. "I'd miss you too."

He crossed his arms and looked away from my eyes. "Just go look for clues."

I started to look around the museum to find anything about bats. I did find one thing that was about a myth of sisters that were turned into bats, but that didn't really seem all too relevant.

* * *

Devain was on the one side of the exhibit, and I was on the other. Kerberos was hanging out in my hood and looking at everything I had already looked at and may have missed. I sighed in frustration as we found nothing.

"I just had a thought." Kerberos said.

"What's up, bud?"

"Couldn't you guys just go talk to the police in your super suits to get the police reports involving him?"

"Good idea! You're so smart when you're not sugared up."

"I'm smart?!" He was utterly shocked.

"Want me to take it back?" I laughed.

"Nope, can't do that." He told me. "Not allowed." He shook his head.

I walked over to Devain and tapped his shoulder. "A little floof had an idea."

"Is it a good one?"

"Yes. Why don't we go to the police station and ask for the reports involving him?"

"In your superhero costumes." The little floof added.

"Yes, in our costumes."

"That could work, let's go."

* * *

Leonidas and I walked into the police station and it was kinda awkward when a few people stopped their work and just watched us.

"Uh, hi!" I awkwardly greeted everyone and walked up to the closest desk.

"Hello, what can I do for you?" The person asked.

"We're looking for any police reports that involve the bat villain that's been flying around Paris."

"Alright, hold on a moment." They got on the phone and dialed some numbers before saying to the person who picked up, "Hey, I've got a pair of superheroes here asking if we have any reports about the bat villain that's been around. Should I just let them into the records with a supervisor?" There was a bit of a wait before the cop who was there nodded their head. "Alright, I'll let them know." The cop looked back at us. "Sorry, but we need a request to be made in advance for us to give you access to records. It's a processing thing."

"How long will it take?" I was hoping for the answer to be less than four days.

"1-2 weeks."

I sighed and turned to walk out. "Thanks anyway."

I heard Louvan raising hell about how we needed the files and that I was for the greater good, and that they were going to lose two of the heros in the process if we did not get the files now.

"Oh, Leo~" She sang and grabbed my arm.

"If you stole them, put them back."

"I didn't steal them. That would make me even lower than Hawkmoth. No, I was very persuasive and they're waiting for us." Her eyes were shut from her smiling so much.

"Thanks, good job." I patted her head.

Everyone was watching Louvan carefully. Guess she scared the shit outta them.

"Hey," a heavyset cop with red hair said to get our attention, "I'm going to be your escort, if you could follow me." We did follow him to a room that seemed filled with filing cabinets and he led us to one that was labeled with "b" before he pulled out a few different case files. "This is all the information we have on the bat villain you guys keep tangling with. Hopefully it does something for you."

"Thank you, sir!" Louvan quickly grabbed a file and sat down to read it. "This might take me awhile, Leo. Slow reader."

"That's fine." I told her as I picked up a different one and started to scan the pages of it.

It took a long time, but we did end up piecing together a general area he tends to be spotted in. We left the cop with the refiling and went to patrol that section of Paris, keeping each other on call in case we spotted him.

There was nothing for three days. It was starting to look like he was going to be a no show until I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye. It was dark, metallic, and looked to be moving quickly through the air. "Louvan, I think I spotted him, I'm going to get after him, going down Avenue Victor Hugo." I started trying to catch up to the bat.

"Got it. We'll trap him in between us."

Now that I had a better look at what it was I saw, I knew it was him. This had to be it. He turned to look at me from the air, with a cocky smirk on his face. "Oh, looks like the little pussy cat finally figured something out. What are you going to do, all on your lonesome when you couldn't even get me before with the help of your lapdog?"

"Things have changed since the train." I told him as the lions formed on my gauntlets.

"We'll see how you're feeling soon." I saw the devices in his ears and his wings glow before he shouted "Echo emotions!" He let out a screech that filled my ears with a pain that started to creep into my head and had me starting to feel the same way as on the train. No. Not this time. He isn't in charge of me. No one is.

I looked up at him and held up all the fingers I had on my hand. "Five minutes." Then I pulled up my gauntlet with the lion head formed on it and used my own power with the utterance of "Transmuter's roar." And a blast of heat and flames shot towards him. He was startled that I was still going at him after he used his emotion manipulation.

"Th-this isn't how this is supposed to go!" He had finally lost his cool as he struggled to get away from my blast.

"That's too bad." I leapt up and latched onto one of his legs, using my weight and that of my armor to drag him down to the ground. We both rolled as the (crash) landing planted us in the middle of the street. He tried to take off again, but I grabbed his wing and flung him into the wall of a nearby building, sharply bending the wing and grounding him. "Now then, sky rat, let's see if your fans can hold up to the punishment you're about to take." I dashed towards him, swinging with the momentum, he moved out of the way and my fist found itself in the wall he was standing at. I yanked it out and he was looking at me with his bladed fans out at the ready. I grinned a bit as he seemed to have missed Louvan coming up behind him.

Louvan tapped his shoulder, and he turned, she grabbed around the ears and nailed her head into his. He staggered, and she had the ear pieces.

I grabbed him by the back of his neck and slammed him down into the street. "Echo this."

We waited for a few minutes and he transformed into a boy that looked remarkably like Adrien, but dressed way fancier than Adrien would be for anything but a photo shoot and his hair was a lot smoother. A small grey kwami with big ears and flaps between its arms and its torso came out of a black glove that he was wearing. "You've lost your super power privileges." I took the glove off of him.

"Hey there. Are you okay, little fella?" Louvan asked the kwami.

"Oh, um, yeah. I'm fine." The kwami's voice was very high and squeaky. They didn't seem to be able to look us in the eye.

"What should we call you? I'm Louvan, and that's Leonidas." She scooped the kwami in her hand so it could rest.

"Oh, my name is Vesper." She introduced herself.

"Nice to officially meet you." She slid her mask down and smiled. "We've gotta help this guy first, and then we can help you. You can hide in my mask scarf thing if you want."

"No, I should be with whoever has my miraculous." Vesper looked at me, still holding the boy to the ground.

"If that's what you want to do, go for it." I stood up, releasing my grip on the boy. "I'm just glad he's not messing with folks anymore. My necklace started to beep. "Louvan, do you want to tell the other two the good news?"

"Yeah!" She quickly grabbed her knife and called the other one at a time. "Ladybug! Hey! Good news. We got the bat, and his miraculous. We're at Avenue Victor Hugo." Then she called Cat Noir and said the same thing. "What are you doing here still? Go charge up, and take care of Vesper."

"I will." I looked up with closed eyes and just smiled. "It's just nice to have this done with." After I was done basking in my happiness, I jumped up to a rooftop and sat against a chimney. "Shizu, mane blown." My armor vanished as my first kwami came out of my necklace. "Shizu, Vesper. Vesper, Shizu." I introduced the two to each other as I pulled the jerky from my pocket for the little lion.

"I am pleased to meet you." Shizu said and gave a small bow.

"O-oh, um, hi." Vesper seemed even more shy than before.

"Sorry, I don't know what you like, all I have is this." I tried to distract her with the jerky.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine for a bit. I like fruit, by the way. Especially figs."

"I'll be sure to let Ladybug know. Shizu, you recharge. We'll need actual proof that we beat Feratu, and this will be it." I held up the glove.

"Is that what you called my holder?" Vesper cocked her head to the side.

"We didn't know his actual name, and a friend of ours came up with it."

"Oh, I always called him 'Felix'."

"Devain, isn't that the name of Adrien's cousin that tried to make everyone angry with him?" Shizu asked me between bites, and that certainly rang a bell.

"I think you're right, Shizu."

"I would say I can't believe he would do something like that, but I would be lying." Vesper sighed.

I saw Ladybug and Cat Noir making their way to where Louvan said to meet her. "Alright, Shizu, it's showtime. You ready?"

My kwami nodded, awaiting the magic words.

"Mane event." He flew into my necklace and my armor appeared on my body again and I hopped down, glove still in hand.

I landed and looked at them triumphant with the bat miraculous in hand, with Vesper floating next to me.

"Took your sweet time." Ladybug said.

"You can't rush perfection." I chuckled.

"He was great, he even managed to resist the emotion manipulation." Vesper said, praising me.

"No way!" Louvan lightly punched my arm and smiled. "Way to go, dude!"

Ladybug and Cat were both very surprised by that bit of info. "Well, a deal is a deal, you can stay as Leonidas." The red heroine told me. "And I'll let you hold onto that miraculous for now. If you guys saw me with it in my civilian form, it'd give me away immediately, but we all already know who you are."

"Oo! Yes! Score!" Alya's voice was very excited. "This will be such a scoop!" The girl ran over to us with her phone camera pointed at us. "Ladybug, Cat Noir, how did you defeat the bat miraculous holder that's been terrorizing the city for the past few weeks?"

"Wasn't them." I said proudly.

"Wait, you did? Really? But you're oh and two against him."  
"I worked on steeling myself and keeping control over my emotions. With that, I was able to overcome his power and overwhelm him with my attacks." I wrapped an arm around Louvan and pulled her closer to me, "She helped as well with her own brand of tricky heroism."

"Please let go of me." She pulled her mask over her entire face.

I pulled my arm off of her and looked to Alya again. "So, what is it you wanted to ask about?"

"What made him such a difficult opponent before if you were able to take him down so easily this time?"  
"This miraculous' power is emotional manipulation, anyone who can hear the screeching when the holder uses the power has their mental state changed to whatever the holder wants it to be. Through working on my own self-control, I was able to keep my emotions exactly where they should be."

"I see. And what is with the sudden intense interest in this character? I have it on good faith that you two went to the police station recently to get all the information about this villain that you could."

"He's always been a person of interest for us. We try to stay out of the police's way to let them handle the more mundane criminals while we take on what they can't. We went to the police this time because we knew we couldn't just let Feratu make free akumatization victims for Hawk Moth anymore." It wasn't entirely a lie.

"Louvan, what about you? From the same reliable source I heard about the police report search, I also heard that you were much more… forceful in your requests for the information you wanted."

When Louvan pulled her mask down to show her eyes her face was bright red from embarrassment. She was stuttering like Marinette trying to talk to Adrien. "He, uh, well… Is that an akuma?! Gotta run!" She quickly jumped up the walls and ran in a random direction. There was no akuma.

I chuckled a little bit before my necklace started blinking. "I should leave, don't want my beautiful face to drive your viewers too crazy." I winked before leaping off towards where I lived.


	15. Chapter 15

An hour or so later, there was a knock on my window. I opened it up and there was Ladybug. "We need to have a talk." She invited herself in.

"Uh… okay? What about?"

"You've got a pair of miraculous now. Most people only get one that they use."  
"And? Why can't I have more than one?" Shizu and Vesper floated up to our conversation.

"Did you not tell him?" Vesper asked Shizu.

"Not tell me what? What am I missing here?" I was a little frustrated.

"Using too many miraculous at once can drive someone crazy." Ladybug told me. "The only way Cat and I could use two was because we had experience with the other ones before and have a lot of practice with our main miraculous."

I raised an eyebrow. "You think I can't take it?"

"No one can for long without incredible willpower." Shizu told me.

"So, what, you're going to take Vesper and put her with the other miraculous?" I crossed my arms, staring Ladybug in the eye.

"No." She shook her head. "There's no room in the miraculous box for her. But you and I need to come to an agreement."

"Another one?"

"I'm not going to force you to keep this one, it will have its own consequences if you don't follow it."  
"Oo, that sounds ominous." Vesper muttered.

"What do you want me to do?"

"You're only going to use one miraculous at a time. Understood?"

I nodded. "You got it."

"Good. Don't need our frontline going off the deep end." She smiled.

"Wouldn't dream of it. Now head out before Cat gets jealous."

She laughed before yo-yoing away.

* * *

I had just finished a few small projects for giggles. I made Kerberos a small bikers vest, a dress for Tikki, a hat for Shizu, and a fuzzy blanket for Vesper. "What should I make for Plagg?"

"A cheese pillow?"

"A mouse toy?"

"Why does he need a toy?" Kerberos laughed as he admired his new vest. "He probably plays enough with Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" he dragged out the a sound like he was about to say something he shouldn't, "very unfortunate passerby."

I chuckled. "You almost slipped, didn't you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." He played dumb. Which, admittedly, wasn't very hard for him.

"So, you think I should make a small pillow for Plagg?"

"Maybe, but it'd be weird if he got a pillow and the rest of us got clothes. OO! OO! Ear muffs."

"Okay. That'll only take me a minute." I found a pipe cleaner, and some yellow fuzzy fabric and quickly made the ear muffs. "What do you think of that? And he can bend them to fit his head better."

"Do you think they'll last very long?"

"If not, I can always make him another pair. Wanna make some deliveries? Stop at Devain's then maybe call Ladybug and Cat Noir and see if they're busy, or maybe you can stop by and drop them off?"

"Can I get treats on the way?"

"Sure."

"Yes!" He pumped his fist in the air before picking up the things and flying away with them.

"Hey! We're stopping at Devain's first!"

"I thought you wanted me to deliver these."

"Okay. Deliver them then meet me at Devain's. Be careful, fluffy buddy."

"Always!" He said and zipped off.

I chuckled and popped the wheels in my sneakers and cruised over to Devain's. I knocked on the door then let myself in. "Hope you got clothes on!"

"You're lucky I do or else you'd freeze and be redder than a tomato." He stuck his tongue out at me from his computer desk.

"I bring gifts for the MVPs." I grabbed the small bags out of my backpack and placed them on the desk. "Shizu? Vesper?"

"Shut the door and they'll be less shy."

"Oh, right!" I quickly turned around and closed the door. "Sorry, guys."

They flew out of their hiding place in one of Devain's drawers and floated over the bags.

"What is it?" Vesper looked at hers quizzically.

"They're just little gifts I made for everyone." I shrugged. "Go ahead, open them up."

Vesper pulled the bag open delicately while Shizu opened his up with about the same level of urgency as someone opening a gift from the one person at family Christmas parties that you don't quite know how you're related.

Vesper let out a large gasp with a smile that went from ear to ear and pulled out her purple and blue blanket, quickly wrapping herself up in it. "I love it so much."

Shizu pulled his white fedora from the bag and placed it on his head. "I think this is where this goes."

"Yep. It's a fedora, a hat. Something to keep the sun outta your eyes. I hope you like it. I'm glad you love your blanket, Vesper. I wasn't sure what colors you liked, so I hope it's okay."

"It's amazing." She snuggled into the fabric.

Devain was smiling as he looked at his kwami. "Oh, a notable thing happened."

"What's that?" I questioned.

"Ladybug decided to pay me a visit."

"Oh? What's up?"

"So, this one," he poked Shizu's tummy, "neglected to inform me that using more miraculous at once has a chance of making someone go cuckoo."

"Okay?" I didn't quite understand where he was going with this.

"She made me agree to not use both of these guys at once."

"Oh! Wait! So you're in charge of taking care of both of them?!"

"Yep. She said there wasn't room in the miracle box for Vesper's glove." He pulled it a little tighter on his hand.

"But what about putting her in the ladybug, cat, peacock, or moth spot temporarily?"

He shrugged. "She didn't mention anything about that."

"Strange… speaking of Ladybug." I walked over to the window to see if Kerberos was on his way. "Where is he?"

"He's not with you?"

"No. I made Tikki a dress and Plagg ear muffs and he's delivering them for- oh there he is." He phased through the window and sat on my head. "What did Plagg and Tikki think?"

"Very much. Oh, hi, guys." Kerberos waved to Shizu and Vesper.

Vesper was still wrapped up in the blanket, but was wearing it more like a cape with a smile still oh her face. I really wonder what she went through with jerkface. Is that part of why she's so quiet and shy? At least the blanket was making her happy.

"So, you are an errand boy now?" Shizu tried to tease Kerberos.

"If treats are involved!"

"Cookies are in the bag as always." I reminded him.

He was on my head no more. He will always have a cookie obsession.

The kawmi stayed together all night, Devain and I stayed up late playing video games till we passed out.

* * *

"So, you come back to me not only empty handed, but losing what I gave you to retrieve what was already lost." An elderly man sat in a wicker chair as Felix sat across from him.

"I tried, but somehow the lion was able to resist my powers."

"I do not ask for excuses. What I ask for is success. My judgement of you was misinformed. You did not take back what was mine when you had the chance twice. Once with the wolf and once with the lion. You will no longer be a miraculous holder, even once I see all of the miraculous restored to where they belong."

* * *

I was on my way to school when I saw ice coating the street moving towards me. "That's probably an akuma." I thought out loud as I turned to run away from it to find a safe place to transform. Just because a few people knew my face doesn't mean everyone needs to. I ducked into a bathroom and looked at Vesper, who came floating out of my bag. "Ready for a test run?"

She nodded. "Let's do this."

I pulled the glove tighter on my hand. "Vesper, take flight." She flew into the glove and it lit up with a design of a pair of bat wings that met in the middle of my back hand at a set of fangs. I pulled my hand over my arm and chest, creating the start of the black wing suit. I took both hands and slid them over my face and ears, pulling a visor into existence that connected to the devices that appeared in my ears. I pulled my foot forward and smacked my heel onto the ground, conjuring shin guards over the wingsuit. I touched my fists to my forearms to create a small amount of plating there as well and I was ready to go.

I burst out of the bathroom and flew up into the air to try and get a good view of everything. The ice all seemed to be coming from the Arc de Triomphe, and there was someone standing on top of it. At least the whole city wasn't frozen yet. As I started to fly closer, I realized that Shizu might make a better matchup for this than Vesper. I landed about a block away on the top of a building. "Vesper, take perch." The bat kwami came out of the glove as I went back to my civilian form. "Next time. I think we might need the heat from Leonidas for this." I gave her a head pat.

"Okay. You promise?"

"Of course."

Shizu floated up next to me. "The place seems a bit… slippery for the base form."

"Glad we're on the same page." I reached into my bag and pulled out a box that had a few different bags of jerky in it. I pulled out the bag that had blue spice on the meat and gave some to Shizu, whose frill turned into a ball of ice and a small frozen droplet formed on his tail.

"Freezu, main blown." I transformed into Leonidas, but my armor was now silvery with fur lining and my boots had spikes on them to prevent me slipping around. I opened up my gauntlet when I looked over and saw the person still standing there with no other heroes around yet. I called the other three asking, "What, you guys think just because it's an ice villain that I can fight them all by my lonesome?"

"No, I just don't know how to ice skate!" Louvan said on the other line, then followed by her yelling and crashing.

"I'll go make sure Louvan can get there without beating herself up too much." Cat volunteered

"Just keep them busy for now, we're on our way." Ladybug told me.

"Got it. See you soon." I cracked my neck before leaping off towards the Arc. I landed in the plaza the arc is in, skidding with my shoe spikes leaving tiny gouges in the ground. "Alright, you've got our attention," I told the villain, "now what?"

The villain came to the edge of the Arc before jumping down to meet me. "Now, you return what is mine." His whole look seemed to be a light blue penguin motif with a scarf hanging down over either shoulder that had white ends.

"Sorry, I don't think I follow." I didn't get what he was saying.

"Your miraculous was not one for Fu to give." That sentence was more chilling than the ice.

"What?"

"Your miraculous. It was not one that he should have had say over. Now that I am here, I will correct that mistake." He put his hands into the tools at his side which were like a combination of shields and blades. "If you give it willingly, I see no reason to harm you."

I clenched my fists tightly and the lions formed over them. "No." I swung at him with one hand, which he stopped with his shield-blade before thrusting the other one forward at me, but I caught that one in the jaws of the lion gauntlet. With both his hands being occupied, I slammed my armored skull into his, making him stagger backwards somewhat.

He slammed his shield-blades into the ground shouting, "Deep freeze!" and a wave of ice and snow came rushing towards me.

"Transmuter's roar!" I shot a blast of heat at the wave and punched a whole through it for me to use to get to him again. I swung again, but he stopped my punch easily before following up with a swift blow to my gut. It's a good thing I have my armor, or else that might've been super dangerous. Still hurt as I was launched a few feet into the air and a good amount away from him. I landed on my back and slid a bit before I could get back up again. When I was getting up, he wasn't letting me have a break, as he slammed his shield-blade into the side of my helmet to knock me onto my hands and knees.

"Don't take this loss with too much self pity. You have less than a tenth of my experience." He was reaching down to take the necklace from me.

"And you have none fighting me." I grabbed his ankles and pulled them out from under him, making him fall to the ground. He swiftly rolled away, dragging one of his shield-blades on the ice before flinging another, "Deep freeze!" my way.

I crossed my arms in front of my face to protect the openings in my helmet since I was not going to be fast enough to get out of the way of it. Unfortunate to say that I've been hit by things that felt like this before, specifically the shrimp's shockwave punches. I felt myself tumbling with the frozen debris before it dissipated and I was once again on the ground. I forced myself up again and tried to keep focused on him.

"You have no chance without the others to aid you. And they won't be." He waved his arm and a frozen dome that looked to be 10 inches thick surrounded us.

"Low chance. There's a pretty big difference between those two things." I taunted him, trying to make him lose his cool. The ice was clear enough that I could see a red smudge moving towards us. I really hope that that's Ladybug.

The penguin man kept launching waves of frozen pain at me as I tried to smash into him with my gauntlets. Eventually, after way too many, it felt like I had been chilled and beaten to the bone.

I looked up at him from my position kneeling on the ground and I saw a pair of black shapes moving towards us quickly. "The lion shall return to where it belongs." He undid the clasp at the back of the necklace and took it off of me before we heard a muffled shout from outside and the dome cracked severely before shattering. "You all may leave. I've gotten enough for today." The penguin guy told the others as he put on the necklace.

Louvan slid on her knees towards me as he knife was chucked into the penguin's shoulder. She actually took her mask off and quickly covered me with it. It wasn't attached?!

Ladybug tried to wrap him up in her yo-yo, but even with his new injury, he was still fast enough to get out of the way. "Be appreciative that I don't take all of your miraculous and give them to a proper Guardian." He said before leaving with speed that probably wasn't naturally attainable from just a miraculous.


	16. Chapter 16

Louvan wrapped her arms around me tightly. "We'll get Shizu back. I promise."

"What did he mean by 'proper guardian'?" Cat asked. "Ladybug was made a guardian by Master Fu."

I pulled myself out of Louvan's hug and shared what else he told me. "He said Fu didn't have the right to give Louvan or me our miraculous. He probably thinks that Fu wasn't worthy of being a guardian."

"Does that mean he doesn't know Ladybug is the guardian now?" Cat asked.

"He might not, but let's not make assumptions." I looked at Ladybug. "You have a plan?"

"I'll work something out. Usually we don't have to fight other miraculous holders without knowing what their miraculous is."

"It'll be a simple game of cat and mouse, with both sides trying to grab onto the others' miraculous." Cat pointed out. "It'd be helpful if we didn't have just one chance to mess up given how the penguin… uh…" He glanced at me trying to figure out how to say it nicely.

"How he beat me, you don't need to sugarcoat it."

"Right… well, like I said, it'd be good to not be one and done, so what if we got to use a second miraculous?"

"Cat, no. We only used two at once because we had to and we both had experience with them before."

"Now seems about as desperate as when Chloe went psycho." I said. "We've got a guardian that's looking to take all of the miraculous back and is recruiting people to fight against us and he's already gotten one of the miraculous that we had."

"Fine, but if any of you look like you're going to be problematic, I'm taking the second one back myself." She told us. "I'll be right back." She yo-yo'ed away to get the miraculous.

* * *

"They're probably going to come to get that back, sir." Mireille told me.

"I know, child. But that is why I have assembled those I have." I held the miraculous box in front of me and opened it, showing her the charms inside. "Now, child, become a hero, and reclaim what was foolishly taken."

* * *

Ladybug returned with her miracle box. "Cat noir, Louvan, Dynamix, we'll need to be more powerful than normal to take on what lies ahead, pick an ally to assist us." She held it out in front of her and the different compartments all opened up to show the different miraculous.

Cat nudged Louvan to go first, but she quickly took a step back like she really needed to think. "Why don't Cat, or Dynamix go first?"

"Fine." I stepped forward and grabbed the turtle bracelet, slipping it onto the wrist opposite Vesper's glove.

Wayzz popped out of the bracelet and looked like he still hadn't gotten over Fu's memory disappearing. "Hello, do you need assistance?"

"We've got work to do. Shizu got swiped."  
"What?!" That snapped the turtle kwami out of it. "We must retrieve him!"

"Our thoughts exactly. Glad you're on board." I brought my wrist up to about chin level and tapped the turtle miraculous while saying, "Wayzz, Vesper, unify." He flew into the bracelet making it and my left arm shift to a bright green. I pulled my fan blades off of my arms and clicked them together to create a bladed disk that I spun on my finger. It got covered in a green energy before swelling to the size of a usable shield with blades along the edges. I stepped back and looked at the other two expectantly.

Louvan looked at Ladybug a little unsure as she picked a miraculous and carefully placed it around her neck. A small mouse flew out of it. "Mullo, Kerberos, unify." Her outfit was much slimmer, a light grey, but still had her boots and fur trim. She had an actual eye mask, so her other one was gone, and her blue hair was in two large messy buns like ears. She casually swung her knife around that was now attached to a rope.

Cat was last, but he picked the strongest one out of all of us with the snake and slid it onto his wrist. Sass came out and greeted him with, "Cat Noir, good to see you again. I trust you've been well?"

"Been better, Sass. We've got a miraculous to get back."

"Oh my! Just say the words and we will get started."

"Plagg, Sass, unify." Cat brought the two kwami together and was transformed into Snake Noir.

Ladybug pulled out the dragon miraculous and soon enough we were all with our second kwamis.

I saw on my visor that Vesper had put in a route to the other guardian's hideout. "Vesper's leading me, you guys follow and we'll bust down the door together." I took off into the air before following the route she had laid out for me.

We arrived at the front of a sewer grate and I pulled my blade-shield off of my back, putting it onto my arm. The blades started spinning rapidly and lengthening, allowing me to cut through the grate while the others caught up.

"Snake noir, you take point and reverse time if anything happens. Shell shot, you behind him in case he needs protection in a hurry. Rat pack, you stay with me and keep me from tripping." Dragonbug already had a plan.

Rat pack immediately tied her rope around Dragonbug's waist, and the yo-yo around her waist. "Definitely won't lose me."

We traveled through the tight sewer way before coming to a larger area where multiple tunnels came together. I saw Snake hold his hand up and point at one of the tunnels. "Another miraculous holder comes out of that one. They have another time manipulation miraculous. I'll keep them busy while you head around."

I nodded and passed the information back to the others.

We walked into the new space and heard someone call out "Blocked flow," And saw a brown blur move towards us. The user of the beaver miraculous waved as we moved as quickly as we could towards the tunnel he came from, but he was just so fast. Snake noir seemed to be able to move at the same speed as the beaver guy, and so was keeping him from getting to us. Last I checked, he didn't have super speed as one of his powers, so what gives? We exited the chamber, but something weird happened as we did. Dragonbug and Rat Pack were ahead of me, and when they left, they sped up too. Once I was out of the chamber, everything was back to normal speed. I looked back at Snake and the Beaver and I saw them moving at normal speed, but the water from the sewer tunnels was going way slower.

"Shell, come on, Snake Noir can handle himself. If he didn't, we wouldn't still be walking here." Dragonbug encouraged me.

I turned back, looking at them, nodded and we continued.

The sewer tunnel led to a staircase that went up to a traditional pagoda like structure, with a small kid there, coated in spiked armor on her arms, legs, torso, and over her face. Seems like armor was a mainstay for this group of miraculous.

"Ha ha! You might've gotten through Buck Blocker, but now you've got to contend with a real powerhouse! Me! The holder of the hedgehog miraculous, Pin Cushion!"

"You? You're half our height." She didn't seem that intimidating to me.

"Just try to get past me!" She yelled excitedly and held up her tiny fists.

"Okay!" Pack Rat multiplied and all ran past the hedgehog.

"Oh, no you don't!" Pin cushion turned around and held her spiked arm guards in front of her. "Push pins!" She shot the spikes off of herself and the volley of them embedded themselves into the ground around Pack Rat like tiny arrows raining down near the little hero. Pin cushion then ran forward, trying to scoop up all the mini doubles of Rat Pack, but unfortunately for her, it's pretty hard to outrun lightning.

"Lightning Dragon!" Dragonbug shot forward in the form of lightning and picked up Pin Cushion by her back plate and held the kid out at arm's length. "Gotcha."

"Hey! No fair!" Pin Cushion started to throw a tantrum. "You all can't gang up on me! That's not fair!"

"All's fair in love and war, kiddo." I said as I took her from Dragonbug and stuck her to the wall with the spikes on her back.

"Noooooooo! You can't go on! I'm strong!"

"Sorry, but we've got something to get back." Dragonbug told her as we continued through a large doorway with stairs leading upwards.

We ended up in a dojo looking room as we topped the steps and saw a taller boy with a pair of huge tan boots, a net on his back, and a long brimmed hat that had longer ears coming off the back of it, with a mask coming down from the hat's brim to cover the upper half of his face.

"And here I was thinking Master Li was being paranoid. Looks like you guys came prepared. Guess I better remind you who this really belongs to." He held up a gold necklace that was around his neck. "Josephus, Shizu, unify." His torso covered itself in a breast plate and scale mail traveled down his arms until a pair of gauntlets formed over his hands, and the brim of his hat was replaced with a mouth cover that looked like a roaring lion's maw.

"He's mine." I growled as I leapt towards him, but he bounded to the side, making me miss my strike. I tried to turn quickly to do a quick follow up, but he was already bouncing back towards me with his feet out, kicking me into the wall opposite where we all had come in. I pulled the shield from my back and moved towards him again. He bounced away just like last time, bounding around the dojo like a bouncy ball that had just done a line of cocaine. I just needed to wait for the right time as I blocked his blows with the shield repeatedly, barely keeping my footing from the force of the hits he was giving out. Then I saw him mess up. His jump was just a little bit off so I moved to the side and grabbed his leg as he was about to pass by, swinging him over my shoulder and into the ground. My advantage didn't stick for long though, as he swiftly turned the lion gauntlets onto me and yelled out "Transmuter's roar!" blasting me off of him with an impressive heat blast. "I gotta admit, you're doing a lot better than that first move would've had me think." He stood up. "If Master Li didn't already have such a low opinion of you guys, he'd probably want you on board."

"I'm not looking for his approval." I did not like this guy using _my _miraculous.

"Shame, really. You might have been able to use this," he tapped the breastplate with a gauntlet, "again if you decided to switch sides."

"I'm here to get back a friend and make sure no other friends of mine are put in danger by you and yours again."

"Danger of what? You didn't want to give the lion miraculous up peacefully, so he had to rough you up to get it. If you just gave it back, we wouldn't have needed to hurt you."

Dragonbug had used wind dragon to sneak up behind him and leap up to wrap her legs around his neck from behind and use her weight to make him go down while holding one of his arms out with her own and pinning the other shoulder down with her crossed ankles.

"If you had just let us through, we wouldn't have needed to hurt you." I mirrored his words as I took back the lion miraculous from him, Shizu popping out of it as I took it off his neck.

"What are you doing here? Master Li is one of the most prolific masters of Order, he will take all of your miraculous if you stay!"

I cracked a smile. "Then I've got nothing more to lose than the last time, and I think I've worked something out to beat him."

"Rat Pack, come over here and help me get him restrained." Dragonbug started with her orders again. "Shell shot…" I looked away from Shizu and over to her, "show him what you can do."

I nodded. "Wayzz, shell off." The green faded from my suit as the fan blades thinned once again to their normal shape and Wayzz popped out of the miraculous. "Thanks, we both appreciate it." I told the small kwami. He bowed and I tossed the miraculous to Dragonbug before opening the door separating us from what looked to be the final chamber.

"So, I see you have decided to face me alone again." He was sat in a gi with a white and light blue belt around his waist, and a multicolored, reflective band around his arm. "I also see that my miraculous holders were… ineffective."

"Yeah. No powers from me were used. So, looks like it's just a rematch between us." I pulled my fan blades from my back.

"So it shall be." He stood up and held his hands to either side of him. "Mach, Uguento, unify." He brought his hands together and I saw as his outfit changed to a much more reflective version of the one he was wearing before, with one arm having his shield blade and the other having a whip that looked to be designed to grab onto things.

"Vesper, Shizu, unify." The plating on my forearms and shins got a new golden sheen on it, and my visor shifted to become more like my helmet when I'm Leonidas, but the back of my head and down my back was covered in a soft, fur-like material. My wings also changed to be metal coated, and more like that of a renaissance angel than a wingsuit.

"Deep freeze!" He sent a wave of ice and snow towards me, but I jetted upwards to be among the rafters to get out of the way. I couldn't waste my transmuter's roar this early. Not like last time.

He used his whip to join me up there, calling out "Shade walk," as he was pulled up. By the time he should've gotten up to the rafters, he had faded from vision. My vision switched as if on its own to more of a radar sense. Every sound was showing where things were based on how it moved around the structures and people that were here. Vesper never told me she could do echo location. I saw the shape of Master Li coming towards me quickly, flinging his whip for the lion miraculous. I grabbed the end of it before he could latch onto it, and jumped down, using my greater mass from my helm and my changed armor to yank him down with me. He landed on his feet and swifting dashed towards me with his shield blade, which I caught in a gauntleted hand before slamming my armored forehead into his bare one. His head jerked back before his whip found its way around my ankle and pulled me off of my feet and through the air. I used my wings to redirect myself so that I landed with my feet on the wall before jetting off at him again.

"Deep freeze!" He sent off another wave of snow and ice towards me.

I held my fan blades in front of me and spun, hoping to drill through it. I popped out the other side, tossing my fan blades away, I pulled my fist back and slammed my fist into the side of his face, unleashing a "Transmuter's Roar!" as I made contact, sending him flying from the combined force of the heat blast and my double miraculous boosted strength. He landed on his feet, sliding a few more feet after hitting the ground with his finger tips dragging on the ground in front of him. He flung his whip towards me once again, and I caught it like last time, but he yanked on it to pull me off my feet and towards him. This disoriented me enough for him to slam his shield blade into my armored face, knocking me onto my back. As he reached down towards me to try and take my miraculous again, I swept his feet out from under him and swung upwards with my gauntleted fist to slam it into his chest. He cried out and grabbed onto my wrist in surprise, not expecting me to act so quickly. It felt as if he were keeping himself up using my hand to keep him stable, and I pulled it away from him as I shakily stood up. He stayed up for a moment staggeringly before falling onto his back. "Now don't try me again." I told his unconscious form.


End file.
